


Impostor Syndrome

by renaissance



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-09-03 01:19:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 61,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8690938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: At some point, most people with a childhood crush will imagine meeting their idol, and might even pretend that they're dating. This is the story of how Yuuri Katsuki meets his childhood crush, and how they pretend that they're dating.





	1. Chapter 1

Twenty-four is too old to sleep with stuffed animals, and it’s too old for posters on the walls. Yuuri left all of his stuffed animals in Japan, but he brought his posters. The career highlights of Viktor Nikiforov plaster every inch of space from the door to the headboard of his bed, pausing only to make way for the window and the view out onto the busy street in the centre of Detroit below.

Fall’s just beginning, and it already feels like it’s getting darker earlier. Yuuri sits in the gloom with only his lamp casting clinical white light over his desk. They can’t afford another electricity bill like last month’s. Phichit’s scholarship money is barely enough to cover the rent, and Yuuri can’t work full-time. Not if he wants to make it big again.

There’s a knock at the bedroom door. “You can come in,” Yuuri says.

Phichit pushes the door open, letting in a sliver of light. “Drinks?”

“Ah, you go on without me,” Yuuri says. “I’m working on that one bit in my choreo.”

“Such a boring flatmate.” Phichit sighs; Yuuri doesn’t notice he’s approached until he’s draped over the back of Yuuri’s chair. “Aren’t you looking for a job anymore?”

“I am. I mean. It’s complicated.”

“Your choreo can wait,” Phichit says. “Come on. Let’s get drunk. Leo’s in town.”

“Say hi to him for me,” Yuuri says, not looking up from his notebook.

“Boring! So boring!”

Phichit is right, but Yuuri is too tired to argue. He spent all of yesterday ringing up software and design firms to get turned down verbally instead of over email, and _not_ thinking about his choreo, and Celestino wants progress by tomorrow, progress Yuuri can’t show him, essentially, because he’s a complete and utter failure of a human being.

“I’ll come out some other time,” Yuuri promises him.

Actually, part of him hates hanging out with Phichit and Leo and their friends, because they’re all students, all some years younger than Yuuri. They still care about exams and assignment deadlines. But more than that—they’ve never fucked up, not on the grand scale that Yuuri has.

Once Phichit’s gone, Yuuri pushes his notebook away and twirls his pen for a few seconds. He gives it too much spin in his flick, and it rockets straight into the bulb of his lamp. The light goes out with a _pop_.

He sits in darkness for two minutes, maybe three. Maybe ten. Then he puts on the overhead light, muttering, “Sorry Phichit.”

The light switch is next to the door. Yuuri stands with his back to the wood and watches as the space comes to life. His posters of Viktor—all seventeen of them—shine in glorious relief, showing off all the folds and curves from their journey in his suitcase. He didn’t even take the photo of Vicchan from the shrine, couldn’t bring himself to disturb the tableau. Just the posters. Looking at them like this, he notices for the first time that Viktor is looking straight at the camera in all of them, all but one. That one has always been Yuuri’s favourite. Viktor’s glance is off to the side like something’s caught his attention rinkside, maybe someone calling out his name. His hair is short, so it’s a later photo. Distracted.

“What would you do?” he asks all seventeen Viktors. “Would you put a jump there, or stick to the step sequence? Do you think I should quit again?”

Apart from the fact that Viktor is seventeen posters and all the way in Moscow, there’s no way he’d know the answer to that last one.

“Of course I should,” Yuuri says. “You did.”

There’s no malice in his words, though he wishes there could be. Viktor is twenty-eight. Twenty-nine this Christmas. It makes sense for a skater his age to retire. Yuuri wishes it could’ve been different. Wishes he could get angry about it. It’s selfish of him. He has no way of knowing what Viktor was thinking. He wishes, more than anything, that he could’ve skated against Viktor as his equal. Just once.

Instead, he’s stuck with a half-finished choreo and a room full of posters of his idol.

 

* * *

 

The rink is quiet so early in the morning, especially now that Phichit’s fans have stopped crowding for autographs. Yuuri doesn’t miss that—it only served as a reminder of all that his best friend has achieved, and all that he’ll never achieve. Phichit is the reigning Grand Prix champion, and everyone at the rink parts for him as they make their way to the changing rooms. Yuuri follows through the path he’s cleaved.

“You’re early,” Celestino says. “I take it this means you have choreography to show me?”

Yuuri lets out a weak laugh. “Not really. I’m still having trouble with that same part.”

Celestino sighs. “That’s alright. You’ve got time to work on it—but then you won’t have time to rehearse it. You know the drill.”

“I know,” Yuuri says.

Sometimes, his ambition gets the best of him. He tells himself it’s Phichit’s bad influence. Living with a star is like being caught in orbit by a gravitational force beyond your control, and Phichit’s charisma and flair for social media makes Yuuri jealous. At least he can admit to that. He can admit to wanting to be there too.

He just can’t do anything about it.

“Maybe it’ll come easier when you’re out on the ice,” Celestino says. “Go on.”

Yuuri has been focusing more on step sequences than jumps, Minako’s tutelage in ballet following him here to America. Now, he skates in circles until he’s warmed up, and practices his toe loops. The rink fills up; he pushes his earphones further in and closes his eyes, letting the music consume him and hold his concentration.

That’s his strength, if nothing else: he understands the rhythm and cadence of a song, tunes his steps to a lyrical metre. His mp3 player is full of piano pieces, minuets and sarabandes and _Liede ohne Worte_ , and some orchestral works, some chamber music. He had thought about studying music, maybe majoring in composition, but it would have rendered him even less employable than his career in figure skating has, so in the end he went for something practical. Although you wouldn’t know it for all the job offers he’s been raking in since he moved back to Detroit, a grand total of zero. So he does all he can—he skates.

He’s pulled out of his reverie by Phichit’s hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Yuuri, you can’t skip lunch.”

 _Watch me_ , whispers some absurd voice at the back of Yuuri’s mind; he blinks, and the voice shuts up. He slips out one of his earbuds. “I know. Don’t worry; I’m coming.”

“Good,” Phichit says. “You’ve been blanking Leo all morning. It’s the least you can do to—”

“Huh, Leo’s still here?”

“Don’t be daft,” Phichit says. He swats the second bud out of Yuuri’s ear. “Have you been paying attention to anything lately? He’s here for the whole week until New York.”

“New York,” Yuuri says. There’s something he’s forgetting. “Um, yeah.”

Phichit takes him by the hand. “Well, come on then.”

Yuuri gives in and glides along behind Phichit. Leo’s waiting for them at the edge of the rink, and he greets Yuuri with a hug.

“It’s been a while,” he says. “How’s your preparation for this season going?”

“Great,” Yuuri lies. “You’ll have to watch out for me.”

“I won’t lose,” Leo says.

“You’ll _both_ lose to me,” Phichit says, slinging his arms around their shoulders and pulling them close to him—and down, because he’s that little bit shorter. “Come _on_. I’m starving.”

They head to the rinkside cafeteria, the cheapest and quietest option. The tables are white plastic and the chairs match, legs rickety and uneven. It’s comforting in its decrepitude. Yuuri happily lets the scenery subsume him. Phichit and Leo make easy conversation, and Yuuri convinces himself that it isn’t dissociating if he’s haunted by the vivid mental image of the slits in the seat of his chair swallowing him whole.

It hasn’t been this bad for a while. The worst part is there’s really nothing specific that could’ve brought it on, but a stream of little things piling up like steady snowfall that blocks the door from turning on its hinges. He needs to snap out of it, and fast, if he’s going to get anywhere.

“I’m hoping for Cup of China again,” Leo’s saying. “I miss hanging out with Guang-Hong, y’know? But I guess it might be interesting to see Russia.”

“I want to do Rostelecom too,” Phichit says. “What about you, Yuuri?”

“Oh, uh,” he says eloquently, “I guess I’d like to do NHK? It’s close to home. I’d like to be able to visit my family while I’m there.”

“I get you,” Phichit says, nodding. “Do you think there’ll be anyone in New York who knows?”

“Knows what?” Yuuri asks.

Phichit reaches across the table and flicks his forehead. “Our semifinal allocations. I know it’s early, but—”

“You’re forgetting I haven’t even qualified yet,” Yuuri says.

Even he forgets sometimes—he’s unseeded now, so there’s no guarantee that he’ll be chosen as one of Japan’s representatives. First, he has to go back home and skate in a qualifier competition, where he’ll be up against all the top Japanese skaters. Again. He went through this same anxiety years ago when he started going professional, before he stopped worrying whether he’d make it. Then, he’d stood on the ice knowing that the further he went, the closer he was to competing on the same stage as Viktor Nikiforov. Now, that’s not even there to entice him.

“ _Commemorative photo? Sure.”_

Those were Viktor’s first words to him. Not _you did well_ or _you’ll do better_. That was a year ago. Yuuri wishes he’d learnt not to worship false idols over all this time he’s had to wallow.

Now, Phichit and Leo are giving him apologetic looks, which may well be worse.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Leo says. “Anyway, everyone knows you’re the best skater in Japan. You’ve just got to get back up there.”

“I hope that’s the case,” Yuuri says.

It’s not unheard of for skaters to skip a season, but it’s not common either. That only serves to motivate Yuuri. He’ll come back stronger than he was before. Viktor Nikiforov kept skating until soon after he turned twenty-eight, so Yuuri’s got at least four more years in him. He wants to be the best again, prove himself to everyone who’s ever doubted him. But more than that, he wants to prove himself to himself, that he’s earnt this, worked for it with everything he has, and that he _deserves_ to be the top male figure skater in Japan, maybe even in the world.

That’s the thing about impostor syndrome—the better you are, the more you notice your flaws. And the more you notice your flaws, the less likely you are to think you belong at the top of your game, where everyone else sees you.

 

* * *

 

Leo follows them home that night with two six-packs of beer and a bag of Doritos. They don’t have a TV, although they’re saving up for one, so they settle for watching old figure skating videos on the internet and assigning their own scores for nonsense like how sparkly someone’s costume is, or how many landings they botch. Phichit is a lightweight and it doesn’t take him long to get loud and garbled. Yuuri is also a lightweight, so he avoids drinking altogether.

“Hey,” Phichit says, “related videos: Viktor Nikiforov lands his first quad flip in competition.”

Before Yuuri can suggest that maybe it’s time they did something else, Leo’s leaning over him to click on the thumbnail.

It’s a performance Yuuri’s seen many times, on nights alone in his bedroom with his earbuds in tight to block out the raucous guests outside. He’s memorised every step of this routine, mesmerised by the way Viktor’s long hair arcs behind him, and he remembers waking up early to practice it at the Ice Castle. Although he hasn’t ever been able to land the quad flip, he can recover from whatever he’s managed instead in time to the music in his head. If he were to stop to analyse it, he might question why he puts more effort into mimicking Viktor’s programmes than perfecting his own. But thinking too hard about anything has never gone well for Yuuri. It’s when he goes with the flow—that’s when things start to go right.

“I can see why you’re obsessed with him, Yuuri,” Phichit says.

“What?” Leo, three beers in, elbows Yuuri a little too enthusiastically. “You’re really obsessed with Nikiforov?”

Yuuri tips his head backwards, staring at the ceiling like it might answer the question for him. “I’ve looked up to him since I was a kid,” he says. “I wouldn’t call it an obsession.”

“You should see his posters,” Phichit says.

Leo laughs awkwardly. “Posters?”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being inspired by another skater,” Yuuri says, flopping down to lie on the floor. This way, he doesn’t have to look at the video. “It’s not like I’m trying to _be_ him.”

“Still.” Leo pauses, and Yuuri can hear him scratching the back of his head. “It must be tough to think that you’ll never get another chance to compete against him.”

“It is,” Yuuri says. It’s not worth lying about it.

“Hey, hey, he’s modelling now, right?” Phichit interjects.

Yuuri recognises it as an attempt to lighten the tone. “That’s right,” he says, sitting up again. “Gucci menswear S/S ‘14 was his latest.”

“Obsessed,” Phichit says.

“Imagine being so famous that you could step out of one career and right into another,” Leo says, as Phichit types “nikiforov gucci ss 14” into a new tab.

“I don’t think any of us _really_ have back-up careers,” Yuuri says. “It’s hard to focus on the future when we’re so wrapped up in the present.”

“Deep,” Leo says. “You should make that your theme this season. The present and the future.”

Yuuri is grateful he doesn’t mention the past—the less he’s prompted to think about the past, the better. “That’s a good idea. I’ll keep it in mind.”

“You have to tell everyone it was my idea, though,” Leo says, poking a finger into Yuuri’s arm.

“There’s plenty of time to think about that,” Phichit says, scrolling through a tiled image search which is picture after picture of Viktor Nikiforov posing lithely in _haute couture_. “For now, we should talk about what we’re going to wear in New York—Leo, do you think I’d look good in one of these floral suits?”

“I don’t think anyone looks good in these clothes but models,” Leo says.

Yuuri takes it as his cue to fade into the background. He lets them talk about New York without him, planning their hotel room and their transport and their suits—it’s got nothing to do with him. He slinks off to his room and shuts the door gently.

“Hey,” he says to the poster where Viktor isn’t looking at the camera, “I think it’s time for me to step out of your shadow.”

 

* * *

 

“The choreo’s coming along nicely,” Celestino says. “Yuuri, with this, I’m certain you’ll be selected for the Grand Prix series. They can’t ignore your history, either.”

“Thank you,” Yuuri says. “I hope that’s the case.”

Celestino ignores his pessimism. “And you, Phichit—keep up the good work. We may yet get another GPF gold under your belt.”

When Celestino turns his back, Phichit sticks his tongue out at Yuuri. And then, “Celestino, wait—I have a question.”

“Fire away,” Celestino says.

“I’ve been thinking about the gala dinner in New York,” Phichit says. “I know the invitation came through you. Was there anything about bringing plus-ones?”

“All invited guests can bring plus-ones,” Celestino says, “but I didn’t mention it because I know you don’t have time for a girlfriend.”

Phichit laughs. “Well, that much is true. But, I was thinking… I would like to bring Yuuri along.”

“Huh.” Celestino purses his lips in contemplation. “That mightn’t be such a bad idea. In preparation for his second debut, you can reintroduce him to some of the big names.”

“Isn’t a second debut called a comeback?” Yuuri asks. His thoughts are messy with confusion, trying to remember exactly what the gala dinner in New York is for, and why Phichit was invited but he wasn’t.

“Don’t get smart with me,” Celestino says, not with rancour. “Yuuri. Do you _want_ to go?”

“It’s all the top skaters in America, plus all the internationals like us who’re training here, and then some,” Phichit says, like he can read Yuuri’s boggled mind. “It’s a good opportunity for you to show yourself off. Hell, I’ll show you off—I’m the star guest, after all. I can re-establish your career before it’s even begun.”

When he puts it that way, it does seem appealing. A fresh start. Not a comeback—a second debut, a brand new Yuuri Katsuki.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll come with you.”

And he’ll leave the past behind. For good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to post this first chapter on yuuri's bday so here it is! probably i won't update to a regular schedule but i am very excited to (a) write the rest of this fic (b) share it with the world :)
> 
> (p.s. please look up gucci menswear s/s '14 and imagine viktor wearing it you're welcome)


	2. Chapter 2

On the morning they’re due to leave for New York, Yuuri stops by the landlady’s apartment and pays the next fortnight’s rent in advance. She dotes on him and Phichit, but that doesn’t stop Yuuri from feeling bad every time he’s forced to pay her a little late. At least he’s travelling with a good conscience.

Leo, the only one with a license, deals with the hire car people and the satnav, and Phichit’s responsible for putting together a playlist. Yuuri had asked what he could do—Phichit told him, “Nothing, just sit in the backseat and look pretty.” He doesn’t mind having nothing to do, but it’s a long drive, the better part of a day. After the fifth appearance of _Diet Mountain Dew_ on Phichit’s mixtape, the cabin fever starts to set in.

They stop to refuel somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, at a gas station with more birds than patrons. _Empire State of Mind_ cuts off halfway through a high note, and Leo gets out to refuel. Yuuri wanders around to the side of the highway, shaded by trees, and breathes in the fresh air while he can.

He’s joined eventually by Phichit and Leo. “We’ve stocked up on snacks,” Phichit says. “Ready to get back in the car?”

“I’m sure Celestino would’ve had funding for us to take the plane with him,” Yuuri says. “We should’ve asked.”

“Yeah, but we’re on a _road trip_ ,” Phichit says. “You need to start having more fun, Yuuri.”

Without warning, Phichit grabs Yuuri by the shoulder and pulls out his phone. “Something for Insta!” he says, and snaps a photo of the three of them, there by the side of the road. Phichit keeps the camera sound effects on. He likes the old-fashioned charm of it. It’s enough to ground Yuuri, for now.

Yuuri sees the notification that he’s been tagged once they’re back driving: **phichit+chu:** _road trip to nyc for skate america gala!!! with @ykatsuki and @leo_dli_. There’s already a long trail of comments from Phichit’s fans, lots of emojis with heart eyes, or long strings of hearts.

“Oh my god,” Phichit says, “Viktor liked it!”

“What, no way!” Leo nearly swerves off the road. “Let me see that!”

Yuuri’s palms are sweating but he’s slow and steady as he scrolls through the inevitable barrage of notifications that comes with being tagged by Phichit. There it is: **v-nikiforov** _has liked a photo you’re tagged in_. There’s another notification that catches Yuuri’s eye.

“He… he followed me…”

Phichit whips around so fast his knee hits the glove box. “ _What_! He followed you? Are you following _him_?”

“N-no,” Yuuri says, “I—”

“Follow him back!” Phichit says. “Right now!”

Yuuri doesn’t have the heart to tell Phichit that he’s got a private account that follows Viktor and only Viktor. He clicks on the notification and it takes him through to Viktor’s profile. All these photos of him having fun, looking dashing in the latest fashions, generally being a beautiful and successful person—it stresses Yuuri out. He hovers his finger over the follow button, closes his eyes, and presses down.

“I did it,” Yuuri says. He lets out a breath.

“Wasn’t so hard, was it?” Phichit says.

“I wonder if he followed me too,” Leo says. “I’ve been following him for like two years.”

“Maybe if you beat him in the GPF he’ll follow you back,” Phichit teases.

But—Yuuri didn’t have to beat Viktor in _anything_ for him to follow back. Viktor’s never said more than three words to him. As they turn a corner in the highway and the trees and mountains rush by, the windows down and a cold blast of air hitting Yuuri in the face, he allows himself, momentarily, to think that there’s something special about him.

 

* * *

 

It’s dark by the time they get to their hotel in Manhattan. Leo’s exhausted from all the driving, and from the excitement of finding out that Viktor’s followed him too—he falls face-first onto the closest bed.

“Bags not the sofa bed,” Phichit says, so Yuuri is stuck unfolding its creaking springs while the others doze off.

He can’t sleep, too restless to settle. He can’t turn on the TV to break the quiet, so he sticks in his earbuds and plays rhythm games on his phone until he’s beaten his high scores on all of them and he’s gone back to being bored again. Taking one of the swipe cards for their room, he slips out of the hotel and onto the busy city streets—they say New York City never sleeps, which is good for a part-time insomniac like Yuuri. He walks a few blocks and suddenly he’s in Central Park, still lively with more than enough dogs to capture his attention.

On his way back, he sifts through his photos—in amongst the dog-spotting, there are a few nice pictures of the city lights. Yuuri picks the nicest one and posts it to his Instagram, which has been gathering dust for the last few months.

Maybe Viktor will like it.

He doesn’t. Granted, Yuuri’s only waited about five minutes. Maybe Viktor’s not checking his Instagram right now. Maybe he doesn’t like every post he sees. Maybe he only liked Phichit’s post by mistake. Followed Yuuri and Leo by mistake.

Yuuri gives into his worst impulses and clicks on Viktor’s profile again. Now he can take his time to look through it, not having to worry about the car’s motion making him dizzy. The first photo is a selfie, taken next to a catwalk with a blurry pair of legs in the background. Yuuri can understand how Viktor could so easily go into modelling. He really is something to look at. The caption reads: _up there tomorrow! #nyfw_.

NYFW. New York… Fashion Week? _New York_?

Yuuri lets out a yelp, nearly dropping his phone. He’s standing in the middle of the sidewalk, hyperventilating. New York. Viktor is here, in the same city as him.

It’s too much for Yuuri—as fifty-thousand people before him have done, he likes the photo.

 

* * *

 

The dinner is not going well. Since he’s Phichit’s plus-one, Yuuri is mercifully seated right next to him, but Celestino is a few seats away, and Leo is all the way across the other side of the room. He’s sitting next to _Viktor Nikiforov_ , and Yuuri can’t shake his eyes from the Gucci menswear S/S ’14 suit and the casual flick of Viktor’s half-fringe over his left eye and the way he waves his hands when he talks and—

“Earth to Yuuri,” Phichit says.

“I know,” Yuuri says, “I know, I’m here. I didn’t think _he’d_ be here, that’s all.”

Phichit sighs. “You spent all of today screaming about how he’s in the same city as us. Is it really such a surprise?”

It _shouldn’t_ have been a surprise, but somehow it is, and while Yuuri does feel like a fool for not making the connection, he’s also glad he didn’t know, because otherwise he straight-up wouldn’t have come. His days of getting flustered by Viktor’s good looks are long over—he’s not a kid with a crush anymore. But that doesn’t change the fact that Viktor has always been his inspiration, and that whenever Yuuri looks at him, he’s hit with that residual feeling. And nerves. Mainly nerves.

“I should introduce the two of you,” Phichit says, tapping his chin.

“ _Please_ don’t,” Yuuri says. “I don’t think I can handle that much mortification. Do you remember what happened last time I was in the same place as him? He thought I wanted a _commemorative_ —”

“Yes, I think I’ve heard the story once or twice,” Phichit says. “It’ll be different now. He’s not a skater anymore, so you don’t need to feel threatened by him, or whatever. Plus, he follows you on Insta. That _clearly_ means he’s interested in you.”

“He followed Leo too,” Yuuri points out. “He probably wishes he was still in with the skating crowd.”

It’s funny how Yuuri can imagine Viktor doing something so human, even though he’s spent so long putting Viktor on such a high pedestal. Perhaps he _would_ be fine facing Viktor as he is now—the star, but no longer the star of _this_ show. Phichit’s spent all evening introducing Yuuri to big names. What’s one more?

Yuuri seizes the reckless impulse before he can change his mind. “Okay, why not. Introduce us.”

“Yeah?” Phichit breaks into a grin.

“Yeah,” Yuuri says, and sculls the rest of his wine.

“Ready?” Phichit asks, standing up.

For good measure, Yuuri downs Phichit’s wine too. “Yeah.”

Light-headed with something like excitement, he follows Phichit across the function hall. It won’t be so bad. Leo is right there. If it all goes south—which it likely will—Yuuri can just start talking to Leo. Perfect.

 _Be cool, Katsuki_ , he tells himself.

They reach the table. Phichit walks up between Leo and Viktor. This is really happening. Yuuri can already see it: Viktor turns around, and asks him if he wants another fucking commemorative photo. Phichit pulls Yuuri up beside him, so that Yuuri’s standing closer to Viktor. Yuuri can feel sweat beading on his forehead. He doesn’t even sweat this much after a free skate. Phichit leans forward and taps Leo on the shoulder—

—wait, _Leo_?—

—and shoves Yuuri to the other side so hard that he practically falls on Viktor.

This is, without a trace of doubt, the worst day in all twenty-four years of Yuuri’s life.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it!” Viktor says.

By the time Yuuri has recovered enough to stand up straight again, Viktor is standing too. Yuuri takes in everything at once: Phichit is chatting to Leo like nothing happened, and Viktor Nikiforov is standing in front of him with a red stain down the front of his crisp white shirt and an empty glass in his left hand.

“I’m really sorry,” Yuuri says again. He feels like the floor is going to collapse beneath him.

Just when Yuuri starts thinking that there’s no way this can get any worse, Viktor puts his glass down and starts unbuttoning his shirt. “Not to worry,” he says. “I have lots of shirts. Besides, don’t you think it’s getting a little hot in here?”

It is. Yuuri can’t coax anything out of his mouth other than a strangled coughing noise.

“Have we met?” Viktor asks. “You look familiar.”

“I’m a figure skater. Um, Yuuri Katsuki.”

“Katsuki,” Viktor says, putting a finger to his lips. He narrows his eyes. Yuuri notices that his cheeks are flushed bright red. “Kaaaaatsuki. I wonder…”

“You followed me on Instagram yesterday,” Yuuri blurts.

Viktor’s eyes go wide again. “Did I?”

 _That’s that, then_ , Yuuri thinks. Not even important enough to stick in Viktor’s memory. He might as well go back to Detroit now. Blow his rent budget on a flight. An overnight train.

“Oh, well,” Viktor says, “Yuuri. Do you know where the bathrooms are?”

“I don’t,” Yuuri says.

“Great!” Viktor claps his hands. “We can go look for them together!”

Before Yuuri can protest, Viktor’s got him by the forearm—Viktor is _touching_ him—and he pulls Yuuri away from the main dining area. As Yuuri scrambles to keep up, he catches Phichit’s eyes. Phichit gives him a thumbs up. Well, that’s the end of _their_ friendship.

Viktor finds the bathrooms quickly enough. He lets go of Yuuri’s arm, only to take off his jacket and throw it at Yuuri. It nearly lands on the floor, but Yuuri’s got fast reflexes. He’s distracted by smoothing out the flying jacket, and when he refocuses, Viktor is naked from the waist up except for a watch that probably cost more than all the rent Yuuri’s ever paid in his life, and he’s running his shirt under a tap.

“I’m so sorry,” Yuuri says. He bites his lip, and forces himself to look away.

“Didn’t you already apologise?” Viktor flicks some water at Yuuri. “I don’t mind. It makes the party more exciting!”

“You have a funny idea of exciting,” Yuuri says.

“This was a pretty boring party, anyway,” Viktor continues, like he hasn’t heard Yuuri at all. “Hey, do you want to go somewhere else? There’s a bar near my hotel that serves drinks late.”

No, this is too fast. Just this morning, Yuuri was having a meltdown over being in the same city as Viktor. Now Viktor’s asking him out to go drinking. This is absolutely not happening. The entire city of New York is some kind of fever dream. That’s the only explanation.

“Um,” Yuuri says.

“You can bring your friends,” Viktor says. “We’ll paint the town red! Is that what they say in English?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri says. “I’m not that good with idioms.”

For the first time, Viktor looks at him. He pauses, leaving the tap running over his shirt, and really _looks_ at Yuuri, with both of his eyes and something intent in his gaze, nothing like the cool and flippant persona Yuuri’s always admired. Yuuri almost reflexively pulls Viktor’s jacket closer to his chest.

The moment doesn’t last. “Me neither,” Viktor says. “I never paid proper attention in my English lessons. I was looking up how to say all the rude words.”

He grins, and Yuuri finds himself grinning back.

“So,” Viktor says. “How about it?”

 

* * *

 

From the bar, their next stop is Viktor’s hotel.

“The _Plaza_ ,” Phichit says. “The Plaza! You’re staying at the Plaza!”

“Aren’t you?” Viktor asks.

He’s a lot more drunk than the rest of them. Yuuri can’t understand it. He gets drunk, and he gets _badly_ drunk, but usually his head starts hurting and he has to go to sleep. Viktor is alert and, despite the bracing wind, seems to be doing fine wearing only a jacket over his bare skin, his shirt carelessly discarded in a rubbish bin after he’d decided the stain rendered it irredeemable.

“We’re all staying in the same room,” Leo says, his speech a little slurred. He’s still only twenty, but no-one had asked any questions. “Do you really think we could afford the Plaza?”

“Maybe, if you were all staying in the same room,” Viktor says. He slings an arm around Yuuri’s shoulder. “You should see my room. The _views_!”

That’s the other thing. Viktor is _handsy_. He has absolutely no respect for personal space, least of all Yuuri’s. The worst part is that Yuuri has no idea whether this is because he’s off his face, or if it’s just how he is.

Either way—he’s met his idol. Viktor Nikiforov. He’s seen Viktor Nikiforov shirtless in a bathroom. He’s done tequila shots with Viktor Nikiforov. It still doesn’t feel real. The problem with Viktor—or drunk Viktor—is that he seems to be a genuinely amiable person, easy to befriend and easy with his charms and affection. Yuuri is drawn to people like Viktor, who give off all the confidence he’ll never have himself. Phichit and Leo are like that too, but Viktor is. Something else. Something _more_.

Viktor leans all over Yuuri all the way up to his hotel room, crowding him into the corner of the lift. There are mirrored panels, framed with ornate art deco patterns. Yuuri catches a glimpse of his reflection, and is startled to see Viktor’s fingers straying dangerously close to his top button. He takes Viktor’s wrist to move him away, but Viktor seems to think Yuuri is trying to hold his hand, and links their fingers.

Phichit’s phone is out in a matter of microseconds, and he takes a photo of the two of them like that.

“Oh, god,” Yuuri says. “Don’t you dare put that on Instagram.”

“I won’t,” Phichit says. “It’s blurry, anyway.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, drawing out the first syllable, “let’s order more wine.”

The lift comes to a halt. “I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Yuuri says.

Viktor, evidently, does not share this opinion. The first thing he does when they’re in his suite is ring up room service and call for two bottles of “the most expensive wine you have.” Yuuri isn’t fast enough to stop him, because he’s too busy gaping at the opulence, the windows with a view over the entire city, the sheer volume of suitcases and expensive clothes just _lying_ there.

The four of them end up in Viktor’s king-sized bed with the TV on to the music channel. It’s too loud, but no-one complains. Yuuri doesn’t even notice the room service arriving. Someone hands him a glass, already full of wine. He drinks it.

“No matter what you’d told me,” Leo says, “I would never have believed this morning that tonight would turn out like this.”

“I don’t understand,” Yuuri says.

“We’re in a hotel room,” Leo says, pausing to hiccough, “in the Plaza, with—”

“Me!” Viktor says, sticking his arms in the air and sloshing wine onto the bedsheets.

“No, you have to understand what a big deal this is,” Phichit says. “Yuuri is, like, your biggest fan ever. This morning he cried into his cereal because he realised he was in the same city as you.”

Yuuri is too far gone to deny that, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

“Aw, Yuuri,” Viktor says, “you’re a fan?”

“More than a fan,” Leo says. “Totally obsessed.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Yuuri says, “why don’t we talk about something e—”

He doesn’t get to finish the word, because Viktor’s on top of him an instant, and Yuuri gets the breath knocked out of his lungs as he falls back onto the bed. His wine glass rolls away. Was there any wine left in it? He doesn’t remember. Viktor’s hands are everywhere at once. Yuuri struggles under his weight to sit back up, palms flat on Viktor’s chest to push him away.

Viktor does not move away. He wraps his arms around Yuuri’s neck and kisses him square on the mouth. Yuuri only realises a moment later that he’s kissing back.

Somewhere in the periphery of Yuuri’s senses, he hears the camera sound on Phichit’s phone.

A commemorative photo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "what!?" i hear you ask, "isn't this meant to be a _fake_ dating fic?" yes, it is! all i'll say at this stage is... wait and see.


	3. Chapter 3

Light bounces off every corner of the panoramic view of New York City, throwing the hotel room in the Plaza into the morning head-first, without mercy. Yuuri blinks into the brightness, eyes bleary with sleep and vision blurred. He jabs his fingers at his face a few times until he’s confident he’s not wearing his glasses. He knows where he is, but without his glasses on, the room takes on an unearthly quality. Combined with the head-pounding hangover, it feels like a supernatural experience.

Getting out of bed is harder than usual. This is chiefly because there is an arm slung over Yuuri’s waist, and a pair of legs entwined with his. The arm is Phichit’s. The legs—

Flashes of the night before come back to Yuuri all at once, but fragmentary, half-remembered. Viktor. His idol, Viktor Nikiforov. That’s who the legs belong to.

Yuuri has to climb over Viktor to get out of the obscenely wide bed, and finds his glasses on the bedside table next to a phone he doesn’t recognise. The phone is ringing, but it’s set to silent. Yuuri leaves it. He drags his feet to the bathroom and shuts the door behind him.

When he comes out, hands wet from siphoning water straight from the tap into his mouth, Phichit is standing there scrolling through his phone. He puts it away when he sees Yuuri.

“Morning,” Yuuri says, wiping his hands on his rumpled suit pants.

“Um,” Phichit says, “you are possibly never going to want to speak to me again.”

“I did for a bit, last night, but I got over it,” Yuuri says. “Did you seriously think that pushing me into Viktor was the best possible start to our acquaintance?”

Phichit half-smiles. “Hey. It worked.”

There’s an awkward pause, because Yuuri doesn’t want to acknowledge that Phichit is right, even though they both know he is.

“But, um, I’m talking about something else.” Phichit goes back to his phone. “Have you checked Insta this morning?”

“I don’t even know where my phone is,” Yuuri says. “For all I know I left it in that bar where we did the tequila shots.”

“Do you remember anything past the tequila shots?” Phichit asks.

“Um. I remember coming back here.”

Phichit pulls a face. “Okay, um, I’m going to show you on Insta, and then you can hate me, yeah? If it makes you feel better, I have no memory of posting th—”

Yuuri grabs Phichit’s phone before he can finish his sentence. There, in glorious high resolution, is a picture of Yuuri and Viktor, and they’re—well, they’re kissing.

The photo jogs Yuuri’s memory. It hadn’t lasted more than a few seconds, the natural progression of Viktor’s drunken touchiness, and then they’d gone back to drinking and chatting with the others like nothing had happened. And now here it is, immortalised _in media res_ , posted on Instagram with no context except Phichit’s nonsensical caption, _diet mountain dew baby new york city_ , and five gasping emojis.

Somewhere in the background of Yuuri’s awareness, Phichit is talking, but Yuuri can’t parse his words. His eyes are glazed over, and his mind is static. There’s a photo. A photo on the internet, where anyone can see it. A photo of him kissing Viktor.

 _He kissed Viktor_.

“I can’t process this,” Yuuri says. “How many likes… ?”

Phichit clears his throat. Yuuri decides he doesn’t want to know. He’s still holding the phone. On closer inspection, one of the gasping emojis is a crying-laughing emoji. His eye catches on a number. It’s in the ten-thousands. Yuuri doesn’t want to know.

He hands Phichit back his phone. “I need to go back to sleep.”

That becomes an impossibility—there’s a loud yell from the bedroom, and the sound of a lamp crashing to the floor. Phichit responds immediately, and Yuuri lags behind. When they get to the bedroom, Leo’s sitting bolt upright, and Viktor is just stirring.

“I—” Leo stammers. “I’m in a bed with—”

“Yes, we all were,” Phichit says calmly.

Yuuri envies his composure. Personally, he feels like he’s about to pass out, and he’s not even drunk anymore. There’s a beat of silence as Viktor sits up, and he looks straight at Yuuri. Leo is gaping at Viktor. Viktor picks up the phone, vibrating on the bedside table. Phichit’s eyes dart between Viktor and Yuuri. Yuuri can’t take it; he goes back to the bathroom and locks himself in.

 

* * *

 

Leo and Phichit have gone out for breakfast, kindly refusing Viktor’s offer to let them take advantage of his tab with room service. Out of obligation, Yuuri stays. That, and he’s starving—a full continental doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Viktor’s still on the phone, has been all morning, pausing only to order the food. His own breakfast is getting cold, while he stands on the balcony talking rapidly in Russian. Yuuri finds his phone, eventually, slid under the bed. He’s got an inbox full of emails, emails full of questions he can’t answer. More than anything, he needs to talk to Viktor about it. How to handle it.

“Hey, you should’ve told me the food was here!” Viktor says, coming in from the balcony.

“I tried to,” Yuuri says. “You didn’t hear me.”

Viktor’s face falls—not for long, though. “Oh, well,” he says cheerily, “I’m sure it’s fine.”

There’s no suggestion that he might’ve been hungover. Yuuri is quietly envious. “Who were you talking to?” he asks.

“Journalists,” Viktor says. “Don’t—ah, don’t worry! I refused to give any conclusive answers.”

“Maybe you should tell me what the questions were first,” Yuuri says.

Viktor sits down next to him, the bed dipping to accommodate him. Yuuri shifts a little. He has to steady the tray with one hand so the breakfast doesn’t join the wine stain on the bedsheets.

“Mostly the obvious,” Viktor says, “people wanting to know how we met, how long we’ve been dating for—”

It hits Yuuri like a rush of blood to the head. “ _Dating_? We kissed _once_.”

With a very practiced nonchalance, Viktor shrugs. “You know journalists. Everything is a big deal to them. Anyway, like I said, it’s all fine! We can take things slow.”

Viktor picks up a fork and spears a rasher of bacon, shoving the entire thing into his mouth. He looks far too happy for such a dire situation. But then again—this is Viktor Nikiforov, darling of both the skating and modelling worlds. He’s used to media attention and invasive questions about his personal life. Yuuri has never been famous outside Japan, and now he’s guilty by association.

“Okay,” Yuuri says. “Let’s take it slowly. But first things first, we need to somehow put the message out that we’re not dating.”

“Aw, Yuuri,” Viktor says, a tinge of genuine confusion in his voice, “you don’t want to date me?”

Yuuri goes blank. He’s wearing his glasses, but everything is out of focus. It takes a second for his senses to readjust. Scooting backwards, he puts even more space between him and Viktor. “No!”

“Pity,” Viktor says. “I’m really very good at kissing. As you know!”

“We barely kissed,” Yuuri says.

Viktor shrugs. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“You don’t remember,” Yuuri says. This shouldn’t surprise him—Viktor forgot about following him on Instagram, after all—but it does, and the realisation settles with an uncomfortable weight in his chest. “You don’t remember anything that happened last night, do you?”

“Not really,” Viktor says. “You wouldn’t happen to know where my shirt is, by the way?”

“In a bin, somewhere,” Yuuri says.

Viktor doesn’t look too upset. “Oh, damn,” he says, but without any weight behind his words.

They go quiet. This situation is much worse than an _oh, damn_. Yuuri takes a moment to imagine how his fourteen-year-old self would’ve felt if someone from the future had told him, “You know that famous figure skater you have a crush on? In ten years’ time, you’re going to be sitting on his bed in one of the fanciest hotels in New York with a hangover and he’s going to seriously consider dating you.”

Then again, there is every probability that Viktor wasn’t being serious. But it holds up against his relaxed attitude to the media at large having decided that the two of them are the next hot couple in the skating world. Viktor is unreadable. Would he really go out with Yuuri just because everyone assumes it’s true?

Either way. Yuuri can’t let it happen.

“I’m not leaving this hotel room until you call back all those journalists and tell them we’re not actually dating,” he says.

It’s a decisive way to break the silence, and Viktor stares at him, mouth hanging open.

“Yuuri—you really don’t want to be my boyfriend?”

This must be one of those lost-in-translation things, Yuuri decides. There is no way Viktor would be saying that unless he thought it meant something more like, “You really don’t like the idea of people thinking we’re dating?” Yeah. That makes more sense.

Nevertheless…

“Let me clarify something,” Yuuri says. Sometimes talking through it is the only way to stop a panic attack. “I’ve always looked up to you, Viktor, as a skater, a role model… when I was a kid, your skating inspired me to improve my own. But I don’t _know_ you. We only met last night, and both of us were drunk. It’s still kind of surreal to me that we’re in the same room. I can’t go from that to… to _this_. So don’t try to convince me otherwise.”

There. He feels better with that off his chest. Now they can both move on with their lives.

Viktor seems to have no such intentions. Yuuri makes the mistake of looking up and meeting his eye, and Viktor seems to take it as an invitation, leaning forward and putting a hand on Yuuri’s knee.

“Please forgive me,” Viktor says, “but I’m going to try to convince you otherwise.”

Yuuri bites his bottom lip to keep from screaming.

“I have a suggestion,” Viktor continues. “Why don’t we let this run its course? If the media wants to think we’re dating… would that be such a bad thing?”

“Yes,” Yuuri says immediately. “I mean. Maybe. Sorry. Go on.”

Viktor laughs—whether _at_ Yuuri or _with_ him, he can’t tell. “I’m at a different place in my life to where I was a year ago. I don’t skate anymore, but everyone in modelling sees me as ‘just a skater.’ I don’t stand out. And you—you’re at a turning point too, right? I remember you retired last year. But you’re back. I think we could both do with a bit of notoriety.”

How does Viktor remember that Yuuri retired, but doesn’t remember following him on Instagram? No, never mind that—it’s exactly what Phichit had said to Yuuri, about introducing him to all the big names so he could re-establish himself for his second debut. There’s some sense in what Viktor’s saying. Yuuri could do with that little bit of extra attention to boost his profile, but would he be able to cope with it?

“What you’re suggesting,” Yuuri says, turning it over in his mind, “is that we pretend we’re a couple.”

“Right,” Viktor says. “I wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise, so you can thank your friend with the camera for giving us this opportunity!”

It’s less an opportunity and more making the best of a bad situation, but Yuuri doesn’t verbalise that thought. He thinks about all the time and effort he’s devoted to Viktor Nikiforov, analysing videos, mimicking his routines, falling asleep staring at posters of him… what’s a little more time and effort, compared to all that? Yuuri ten years ago would’ve bawled his eyes out at the thought of even _pretending_ to date Viktor.

Then it hits Yuuri like an intrusive thought—there are probably thousands of fans out there who’ve thought about dating Viktor. And Yuuri’s the one who’s living the dream, sort of. How jealous they’d all be—

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s do it.”

Viktor jumps on him like an overly-affectionate dog. Yuuri is pretty sure he hears the breakfast tray upending as it collides with Viktor’s swinging feet.

“Yuuri! I’m so excited!”

Pushing through the split-second pang of horror, Yuuri chokes out, “Yeah, me too.”

 

* * *

 

It’s becoming a bad habit, making these impulsive decisions and regretting them a few minutes later. Yuuri doesn’t know what he was thinking—maybe for a moment the idea of making some teenagers jealous appealed to the possessive, petty side of him, but now the very thought of it seems ridiculous. Or maybe it’s that they’re walking down Fifth Avenue and Viktor has insisted on looping his arm through Yuuri’s, and it’s a miracle that Yuuri’s feet are moving one in front of the other when they’re like this.

He doesn’t have a crush anymore. He needs to remember that.

“There are only a few diners around here they could’ve gone to,” Viktor says. “Try not to be too embarrassing, okay, Yuuri?”

In fact, quite the opposite: Yuuri is finding that he likes the real Viktor a lot less than the abstract hero he once was.

Yuuri tries to tune out Viktor’s babbling as they walk—“It’s just like in _Eloise_ , Yuuri, you really should’ve stayed at the Plaza with me!” and “I’ll see about getting you a new suit; this one is so un _suit_ able,”—and he’s only brought back to reality by Phichit and Leo appearing in front of them.

“Aw,” Phichit says, “you guys came looking for us.”

His eyes dart downwards to their joined arms, and Yuuri reacts jerkily, pulling his arm loose. He totters to the side but catches himself in time.

“Took you that long to have breakfast, huh?” Leo asks.

Yuuri shoots him a warning look. “We were—”

— _discussing how to deal with the media storm Phichit accidentally whipped up_ , he doesn’t get to say, because Viktor opens his big mouth and ruins Yuuri’s day for the however-manyth time. He’s lost count.

“We were _busy_ ,” Viktor says, “if you get my meaning.”

And then he winks, so outrageously that Yuuri feels nauseous watching the way his eyelashes flick up and down.

“Oh my god,” Leo says.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Phichit says, “for real? I thought it was just the kiss! You’re actually—no way! Oh my god!”

New York isn’t on the Pacific rim, but that doesn’t stop Yuuri from hoping for a sudden earthquake to cleave the ground in two and surreptitiously take him underground, maybe forever. Or he could bolt. It’s not that far to Detroit. Right?

“Shh, keep it quiet,” Viktor says, taking Yuuri by the arm and effectively ruining any chance of escape. “We haven’t told anyone yet.”

“Haven’t—” Yuuri wonders if he’s hearing correctly. “Viktor, you told _journalists_ we’re dating!”

“They worked it out for themselves,” Viktor says.

“I think that’s an understatement,” Phichit says. Somewhere between Yuuri resolving never to look at Viktor again and then breaking that resolve and staring him down angrily, Phichit’s taken out his phone, and he’s scrolling eagerly. “There are a whole load of articles here about you two.”

Yuuri is torn between wanting to see and wanting to disappear again.

Viktor, apparently, doesn’t have conflicting thoughts, ever. He doesn’t seem to have thoughts at all. He _acts_. “Let me see!” he says, and within the blink of an eye he’s leaning over Phichit’s shoulder and going “ooh” and “ahh” every other second.

 _How much longer_ , Yuuri thinks. He agreed to this. And it _is_ a good idea. His profile is already higher than it was a day ago. All publicity is good publicity. But how much longer will it go on? He’s out of his depth. Viktor is too much—as an icon, and as a real person, loud and embarrassing and really, someone Yuuri doesn’t know at all. It could last a few days, at Viktor’s whim. It could go on for months, until the season is over and Yuuri won’t need to be anyone special for another few months.

“Yuuri, you should read some of these articles,” Viktor says. “They’re being very nice about it.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine not knowing,” Yuuri says. “Um… we need to leave soon, Viktor. We’re driving back to Detroit tomorrow, so we need to get our things in order, and—”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Viktor says, “I’ve got work this afternoon anyway. You know, fashion week things. Modelling.”

Being beautiful for a living. Yeah, Yuuri knows.

“I won’t keep you,” Yuuri says, code for _please leave_.

Viktor nods. “I’ll message you tonight. And after that, I’ll see you in Detroit!”

“Wait—”

“Okay, bye!”

Viktor leaves Yuuri with a kiss on the cheek and practically skips down the street back in the direction of the Plaza. Yuuri feels like he’s been run over.

“That was,” Leo says. He doesn’t finish his sentence.

“Dude,” Phichit says. “You’re dating him! You’re dating your idol! And it’s all my fault, isn’t it? I’m practically a _matchmaker_! Yuuri, Yuuri, he said he’s coming to Detroit. Did you hear that? Celestino’s gonna bust a nut!”

Yuuri can feel himself starting to zone out again. He blinks himself out of the fugue, trying to ground himself in the present. “We didn’t talk about it,” he says. “I mean. What we were going to do. After.”

“He certainly seems to have made up his mind,” Leo says. “I know you guys only met yesterday but… he’s super into you, Yuuri. You could probably, like, see it from space.”

But it’s not real. He’s acting! Viktor doesn’t _really_ like Yuuri, at least, not _that_ way. He’s acting, for the sake of picking his career out of a slump. And so is Yuuri. No—they’re not acting if they’re making it up as they go along. They’re improvising. It’s like they’ve walked straight out of the drama classes at high school that Yuuri would run from after a few minutes to lock himself in a toilet cubicle and hyperventilate into his backpack. Only, one of the improvisors is much more _into it_ than the other.

Well, there’s nothing else for it. Yuuri is just going to have to try a little bit harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it started out with a kiss how did it end up like this


	4. Chapter 4

Coming back to Detroit feels like waking up from a dream—that very particular kind of dream where you construct an entirely new world in the space of a few unconscious seconds, and things happen that aren’t too farfetched, but there’s a voice at the back of your head that says, “You probably wouldn’t be doing this if you were awake.” At the time, though, it’s so vivid that you just _go with it_ , and damn the consequences. Yuuri puts the dream behind him, stepping onto the rink. His skates scrape through the ice and give him a solid connection to reality; the chill running through his bones remind him that he’s only human, and that humans dream big all the time.

He gets off the ice to a crowd of people he’s never met, but who he recognises as skaters in Celestino’s junior class.

“Are you Yuuri Katsuki?” a boy asks. “ _The_ Yuuri Katsuki?”

Yuuri has never been _the_ anything before. He’s been “the fat kid” and “the quiet one,” but never with that stress on the article. _The_ Yuuri Katsuki. He likes the sound of it. “I am,” he says.

“You’re really good,” the boy says earnestly. “We saw you practicing, just then. Is that your short programme?”

“Ah, yeah.”

There’s a girl bouncing up and down on her skates, looking at Yuuri with wide eyes. “Will you take it to the Grand Prix?”

“If I’m chosen to represent Japan,” Yuuri says. “It’s not very polished yet, but—”

“Is it true you’re dating Viktor Nikiforov?” the first boy interrupts. One of his friends nudges him, and he laughs. “What? We’re all curious.”

 _That’s right_ , Yuuri thinks. He feels like he’s back in the dream again, the bright lights overhead flooding his vision and blurring everything around the edges. He remembers what Viktor said: “I’ll see you in Detroit!” In an abstract way, he’s already here.

“I appreciate your curiosity,” Yuuri says evenly. “We are dating. But I’d rather not talk too much about my personal life.”

The junior skaters nod their understanding and, although they look disappointed, Yuuri is proud of himself for handling the situation so well. These are questions he’s been answering for the last few days, after all. His family and friends back in Japan were shocked at the news—or maybe “shocked” isn’t a strong enough word, but Yuuri can’t be there to experience their reactions in person. All he can do is reply to his emails and reassure everyone that no, it’s not too sudden, and yes, Viktor treats him well.

As he leaves the rink, his phone beeps. Phichit is a wonder with technology and taught Yuuri how to set different tones for texts from different people. While they drove back from New York, all the texts from Viktor were accompanied by the stabbing violin sounds from _Psycho_ , but Viktor texts so prolifically that it grew tiring to hear the shrill noise every few seconds. After the fifth time that Leo threatened to throw Yuuri’s phone out the car window, Yuuri started to take him seriously and set the tone to something else.

It’s still recognisable. Keeping his back to the junior skaters, Yuuri pulls out his phone and checks the message: _yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuri where are you! im at your flat where are youuuuuuu_

In a very real way, it turns out that Viktor is  _actually_ here.

 

* * *

 

The sun is starting to set, and there’s low orange light coming in through the breezeblock walls of the stairwell. Yuuri dawdles, pausing on each step like he’s got a sprained ankle. He has his keys in one hand and his phone in the other, and his hands stuffed into his coat pockets so no-one can see him fidgeting. He meets Phichit on the landing below theirs.

“You have a leaf in your hair,” Phichit says.

Yuuri relinquishes his keys in his pocket and reaches up, patting his head until his fingers fall on a crinkled brown leaf. He picks it up by the stem and holds it out to Phichit. “A peace offering.”

He desperately wants Phichit to know that he doesn’t blame him for the photo. Or—obviously the fact that the photo is on Instagram in the first place is Phichit’s fault, but everything that happened afterwards _isn’t_ , and they were all drunk anyway.

“I accept it,” Phichit says, taking the leaf and sticking it behind his ear, “even though you don’t know the half of what you have to apologise for yet.”

“I know he’s upstairs,” Yuuri says. “Isn’t that why you met me out here? So we could talk first?”

“Well, it is, but—”

“And you let him in,” Yuuri points out.

Phichit clears his throat. “I didn’t have much choice.”

Before Yuuri can ask what he means by that, there’s a crash from the upper landing, and a lamp clatters down the stairs. It stays miraculously in one piece when it comes to a stop at Yuuri’s feet.

“Sorry!” Viktor’s voice calls. “Sorry, sorry, I was just going to balance it there while I set up the others—”

Yuuri sucks in a breath through gritted teeth. He steps over the lamp, pushes past Phichit, and takes the stairs two at a time. And there’s Viktor, holding three lamps, all gathered up in his arms.

“What,” Yuuri says, “are you doing here.”

“I told you I was coming!” Viktor says. His grin doesn’t falter. “Did you forget all those texts I sent you, Yuuri?”

“Let me rephrase that,” Yuuri says. “What are you doing _here_? In my apartment. How did you get my address?”

Viktor pulls up one of the lamps so that it’s covering his face. “I asked Phichit. I wanted to surprise you!”

“This isn’t the good kind of surprise,” Yuuri grumbles, looking back over his shoulder at Phichit. Phichit, holding the lamp, gives him an apologetic shrug.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Viktor says. “I hardly take up any space.”

Viktor is a walking study in irony—Yuuri can see into the apartment behind him, where all of the suitcases that he remembers from Viktor’s room at the Plaza are taking up all the floor space in Yuuri and Phichit’s meagre living room. Half of the suitcases are open, with clothes spilling out, and there are even _more_ lamps sitting there. They’re all the same kind of lamp too, simple black-painted metal with the light and shade at the end of a long hinged arm.

“So I guess you won’t mind if I step all over your clothes to get to my room,” Yuuri says, giving Viktor a flat glare.

It doesn’t get the desired reaction. Viktor drops the lamps and leaps at Yuuri, taking him by the hands. “Your room! That’s where I’ll be staying, right?”

“You will not,” Yuuri says.

“I don’t mind if you’ve only got a single bed,” Viktor says. “We can get up close and—”

“No, I mean, you’re not staying here,” Yuuri says, cutting off Viktor, and also Phichit, who’s in hysterics. “There’s not enough room for you and your lamps. You—you have to go elsewhere.”

Viktor’s mouth turns down into a comically exaggerated frown, and his grip on Yuuri only tightens.

“We can’t fit all your things,” Yuuri says. He swallows. He will _not_ be swayed by an emotional appeal. “There’s no room.”

Slouching forward, Viktor looks up at Yuuri from beneath his long eyelashes. “What would people say if they caught on that you kicked your own boyfriend out of your house?”

Yuuri tips his head back, gazing up at the popcorn ceiling. He feels the weight of Viktor’s head press against his chest. He’s persistent, and he’s right. Yuuri needs to make the most of this opportunity. He needs to announce to the world exactly who he is.

“Alright. You can sleep on the couch.”

 

* * *

 

Viktor installs himself like a light fixture, bringing a little extra glow to every corner of the dingy apartment. He might be an annoying guest, tilting back his chair and sticking his feet up on the dining table, rearranging the bathroom shelves to fit everything he’s brought along with him, but he’s still Yuuri’s childhood idol, and there is something magnetic about him. Yuuri hates that after all these years, Viktor can still do this to him.

Or maybe it’s all the light. They set some ground rules, chiefly that there are to be no lamps plugged in unless Viktor’s willing to foot the electricity bill—it doesn’t surprise Yuuri that he is. More than willing. He takes out his wallet, only putting it away when Yuuri insists that a bank transfer will be fine, thank you.

It’s getting late, and Phichit retreats to his room. Yuuri wishes he’d stay. He’s not sure which should freak him out more: Viktor Nikiforov, his idol, being _here_ , in his apartment, or Viktor Nikiforov, his touchy-feely pretend boyfriend, clinging to his waist and refusing to let him leave the couch.

“I have to,” Yuuri says. “You’re sleeping here. I don’t make a very good blanket.”

“You don’t need to be a prude when it’s just the two of us,” Viktor says. “Come on, Yuuri.”

The way he says Yuuri’s name—that’s something that’ll take some getting used to. He draws out the syllable like he’s wrapping his tongue around it, lingering to savour the sound. It’s kind of. Well. Sexy.

“I need to sleep,” Yuuri says.

“So let me join you in your room,” Viktor says.

When Yuuri agreed to _pretend_ to go out with Viktor, actual physical intimacy had not been part of the bargain. He gets a flash of horror—and a little bit of something else—at the thought of Viktor in his bedroom.

“We agreed you would sleep on the couch,” Yuuri says. “I have a single bed.”

And walls covered in posters of the very person he’s trying to keep out.

“I’m skinny,” Viktor says.

Which Yuuri knows all too well, from all seventeen posters of Viktor on his walls.

“You know we’re not really a couple, right?” Yuuri says.

In response, Viktor leaps to his feet, knocking over an unlabelled box, one of many from his suitcases. “Exactly! Which is why we need to spend even more time together than a normal couple would. That way, we’ll know each other inside out, and no-one will guess that we’re not actually dating!”

“Wow,” Yuuri says, “you’ve put a lot of thought into this. I—don’t get me wrong, Viktor, I do appreciate that, but I don’t think we need to go as far as you’re suggesting.”

“Okay,” Viktor says, and proceeds to hop over his suitcase debris towards the one door in the apartment that has remained resolutely closed the entire night.

Yuuri watches him descend on the handle like it’s in slow motion. Before he can even register what he’s doing, he’s on his feet and dashing for his bedroom door, not caring how many of Viktor’s expensive clothes he treads on. He latches onto Viktor’s arm and tries to pull him back—Viktor has already turned the handle halfway, and it turns into a contest of strength. Yuuri holds out for as long as he can, but ultimately, Viktor is stronger.

The door swings open, and they both topple forwards, collapsing in a heap on the floor. Viktor is laughing, but Yuuri doesn’t see anything funny about the situation. He rolls onto his back, and Viktor follows, leaning over him with a dazed look on his face.

“I guess we’ve woken Phichit,” Yuuri says, which is the stupidest, most banal thing he could possibly say, but here he is, stone cold sober, with Viktor on top of him and a distressingly small gap between their bodies, in his bedroom, with seventeen posters of Viktor on the walls. There’s nothing to focus on but the minutiae.

“He’ll get used to it,” Viktor says.

Before Yuuri can properly respond, Viktor cranes his neck and looks around, taking in Yuuri’s room. Yuuri sees every nuance of his expression in exquisite detail, the way his furrowed brows unfurl into surprise, and his jaw drops, but he doesn’t look upset, just oddly gleeful.

“Um, Viktor—”

“Your friends weren’t kidding when they called you a ‘fan,’ were they?” Viktor says softly.

“I already told you,” Yuuri says, turning his head so that his cheek rests against the carpet. “You were always my inspiration as a skater.”

Viktor is quiet, still looking around the room. “These are from all through my career. I barely remember some of these outfits.”

“Don't make me say it again,” Yuuri says.

So Viktor doesn’t; he gets to his feet and brushes off his shirt. “It would be weird to sleep in here,” he says, no indication in his tone that anything is weird at all. “See you tomorrow morning, Yuuri!”

He leaves Yuuri lying on the floor and more confused than ever.

 

* * *

 

They need to talk about it. Yuuri is reticent at the best of times, preferring to bottle up his feelings until they get too much and letting them out all at once by doing something stupid, like crying in public or getting blackout drunk. If he’s bad, then Viktor is downright pathetic. He acts like nothing has happened and carries on as normal—as normal as one can be when operating under pretence.

He follows Yuuri to the rink the next day like a tall late-afternoon shadow, drawing so much attention that Yuuri eventually gives up on trying to practice and hides in the changing rooms with his earbuds in and his playlist of fast piano music turned all the way up.

That’s where Viktor finds him.

“I think I stole your spotlight a little,” Viktor says. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“It’s fine,” Yuuri says. He lets his earbuds dangle around his neck, the Bach still audible.

Viktor sighs and sits down on the bench next to Yuuri. “It doesn’t _sound_ fine,” he says. “Do you… uh, do you want to talk about it?”

He really has no clue, does he? Yuuri could laugh—he almost laughs, but it comes out as more of a half-hearted splutter. “When we met,” he begins, “it was. A lot. It’s still a lot to wrap my head around. I grew up as a fan of yours. Now you’re basically a fixture in my life.”

“If you want me to leave, I’ll leave,” Viktor says. He really doesn’t beat around the bush. “Yuuri. What do you want from me?”

 _I want to be famous_ , Yuuri thinks.

“I want you to stay,” he says, “for now.”

“That’s the best I can hope for, huh?” Viktor says, raising one amused eyebrow.

“What do you want from me?” Yuuri asks. “New York City… it’s like I was under a spell. It made sense that you and I would use this thing as an way to further our careers. Now I’m not so sure. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything for you.”

In another lifetime, Yuuri might’ve taken this for granted. But he is not that person anymore. He's been low, lower than he ever thought was possible, but now he’s on the ascendant. He knows a good opportunity when he sees one, but he also knows to ask the right questions before it’s too far to go back.

In another lifetime, Viktor was the world number one male figure skater. He broke records not because of his consistency—although he was consistently impeccable—but because he never failed to surprise the judges.

This, now, is a very personal sort of surprise. Viktor says, “I like spending time with you. Is that a good enough reason?” and Yuuri’s heart does a quadruple flip, because friendship is such an implicit, organic thing—he’s not sure anyone’s ever said those words to him.

“Yes,” Yuuri says very quietly. It is.

“Bedsides,” Viktor continues, like they haven’t just had a _moment_ , “isn’t it fun? I haven’t done anything this reckless in such a long time. You and I will surprise people, Yuuri.”

“I think we already have,” Yuuri says.

“We can try harder!” Viktor declares. He takes out his phone and holds it at arm’s length. “Put your arm around my shoulders.”

Yuuri does that, and summons up some courage from the reserves he usually saves for things like public skates to kiss Viktor on the cheek just before the camera flash goes off.

“Wow, Yuuri!” Viktor has an infectious grin on his face as he admires the photo. “You can do that whenever you want, you know.”

“I’ll refrain, thanks,” Yuuri says. At this rate he’ll keep outdoing himself in the mortification department. Then again, he’s at least ninety percent certain that his tongue has been all the way into Viktor’s mouth, which is pretty hard to top.

Viktor posts the photo straight onto Instagram, with the caption: _at @ykatsuki ’s home rink! #hesthebest #detroit ♥♥♥_

From somewhere outside the changing rooms, Yuuri hears Phichit yell, just as the notification that he’s liked the photo pops up on Viktor’s phone screen.

Yuuri lets out a laugh—on some level, that’s all you can do in a situation like this—but he stops when he sees the look on Viktor’s face. There’s something uncharacteristically pensive and serious about the way his eyebrows are set.

“Viktor?”

“Yuuri,” he says, “I don’t want to be someone you idolise anymore. From now on, I want to be your friend.”

Friends with his idol—well, Yuuri certainly could’ve done a lot worse for himself.

“Right,” he says. “Friends.”

Someone like Viktor can’t give too much away. Or, he’s been so accustomed to fame for so long that he _won’t._  Where a conversation like this would follow some natural cadence, here Viktor is happy to leave it hanging. He pockets his phone and gets up without another word, and that’s that.

“Hey!” Yuuri calls out after him, his mouth moving ahead of his brain. “I’ll—I’m going to keep surprising you, Viktor!”

Viktor only pauses for a moment to glance back. “I look forward to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're reading this from the future, please know that between the writing of this chapter and the last, episode 10 happened. yes, _that_ episode 10. i would say it changed everything, but that's almost an understatement. i've had to do a bit of soul-searching since then re: this fic's relationship to canon, so let me make this clear: this fic is compatible with canon up until the point where yuuri skates to "stay close to me," at which point, in this universe, the video never makes it online and viktor never goes to hasetsu. everything that happened before then also happened before the events of this fic. you may take that as you will. this was just going to be a fun, take-it-as-it-comes project, but given that i've had to rethink my plot in such depth, i think i'm past the point of no return. buckle up.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s early in the morning when it hits Yuuri, the thing that’s been missing from his choreo. The present and the future—that was Leo’s suggestion for his theme. At the time, Yuuri had thought it was a sensible concession to exclude the past, all part of moving on. But he’s shaped by his past, every action he’s ever taken leading him to exactly where he is today. Ignoring that would be irresponsible.

Viktor is asleep on the couch and Yuuri has to step over his suitcases to get to the front door. Changed into his tracksuit, he takes to the chill predawn and jogs around the block under the glow of the street lamps. The bracing air goes some way to clearing his head, and only strengthens his resolve.

By the time the sun rises he’s a good ten minutes from the apartment and sweating all the way down his arms and legs and across his forehead. He feels alive like he hasn’t in months. Years. That’s the thing about being at your worst. It can only get better.

“I’m going to come back stronger,” he tells the empty street. “Wait and see.”

He jogs back faster and faster, breaking into a muscle-aching sprint as he gets closer. The apartment smells like hot tea, and the water’s running.

“Viktor’s been in the shower for fifteen minutes,” Phichit says. “I’m worried about our water bill. And that he’s drowned, I guess. Can you go check on him?”

“Ew, no,” Yuuri says. “He’d better hurry up, though. I feel disgusting.”

Phichit gives Yuuri a quizzical look. “You’re not really dating him, are you?”

Yuuri sticks his arms out defensively. “What—why would you—”

“You don’t act like a couple,” Phichit says. “I mean, if you’re trying, it’s pretty unconvincing. He’s, like, super into you, but who knows what’s going on his head? And you…”

“I’m really not a good actor,” Yuuri says, shoulders slumping as he drops his arms.

“Why are you pretending to be a couple in the first place?” Phichit asks. “That’s like something out of a romcom.”

“It was Viktor’s idea,” Yuuri says. “He thought it would boost both of our profiles.” He pauses, scratching the back of his head. “Plus I think he’s having fun.”

Phichit nods. “I won’t tell anyone. It’s strange, but I think he might be good for you if you gave him a proper chance.”

There’s a crash from the bathroom as the water cuts out. “ _Yuu_ ri! Where are all of your towels?”

“Well _that’s_ not going to happen,” Yuuri tells Phichit. “Where _are_ our towels?”

“Laundromat,” Phichit says with a smirk. “Cupboard. There’s a hand towel in there, but—”

“This one’s too small,” Viktor calls. “It barely covers my—”

“I’m _coming_!” Yuuri shouts.

He finds a towel very obviously protruding from one of Viktor’s suitcases and holds the bathroom door open just a crack, sticking the towel through. Viktor snatches it from his fingers and nearly closes Yuuri’s fingers in the door as he retreats.

“So fake,” Phichit says, clicking his tongue.

“I guess I should work on that,” Yuuri says.

Making the most of it means taking it seriously. Taking it seriously means treating it like a full-time occupation. From now on, he needs to start thinking of himself as Viktor’s boyfriend, both off the ice and on it.

 

* * *

 

“I’ve sorted my choreography for the free skate programme.”

Celestino looks up from his coffee, the surprise clear on his face. “What, so quickly?”

“Yes,” Yuuri says. “I can show you now, if you want.”

“You haven’t had time to practice,” Celestino says. “Don’t show me until it’s at a level when I’ll be able to judge its worth.”

“That may take some time,” Yuuri says, watching for the look on Celestino’s face, the way it changes from ambivalent to surprised, and not necessarily good-surprised either.

“Is that boyfriend of yours putting ideas in your head? Don’t aim too high too soon, Yuuri. You’ll get back to the top, I promise you, but first you need to work your way back up slowly.”

“I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t push myself,” Yuuri says. This isn’t about winning and losing anymore. It’s about proving himself. “Please, let me try.”

Celestino purses his lips. “Show me.”

Yuuri’s legs are shaking as he steps out onto the ice. The rink may be as bright as a thousand of Viktor’s lamps, but Yuuri’s vision goes dark. He can’t let that happen—he’s practised this. Most of this. The step sequence is drawn from all the dances he’s learnt, every step in Minako’s ballet studio, the ballroom classes he took in an abortive attempt to socialise when he first came to Detroit, even the few poles he’s swung around, telling himself it was for fitness.

There are no speakers for his music—Liszt’s _La Campanella_ —but he knows it well, the fast succession of chiming notes and overtones, and presses play in his mind.

That one part, the part he was stuck on, draws closer like a revelation. It’s early and Yuuri hasn’t warmed up and he knows he’s lucky that his stamina is as good as it is, because otherwise he’d be in a heap on the floor. He takes all the momentum he can gather as the chromatic scale rises and spins into a quadruple flip on the D-sharp trills. It’s just into the second half of the time—double points.

He crashes down in one of the worst landings of his career, grateful there’s no-one except Celestino and a few stragglers to see it. All the ache sets in at once; he can’t get back up. But he did it. He felt the rotations as he spun through the air. A quadruple flip.

Crouched on the ice with his head in his hands, Yuuri laughs.

Then, he gets back up, and finishes the programme.

Off the ice, Celestino berates him: “A quad flip? With so little practice? What were you _thinking_ , Yuuri?”

“I need to take risks,” is all Yuuri can say. “I won’t get anywhere if I stay stagnant like this.”

Celestino frowns. “It’s beautiful choreography.  Responsive to the music, elegant, and it does make me glad I allowed you to do this by yourself… but it’s ambitious. Too ambitious. I will have you change the quad flip for a triple, or a salchow. Your quad sals are—”

“Competent,” Yuuri completes. It’s one of Celestino’s favourite words. “I know. But I can’t settle for _competent_ anymore. Please let me do this.”

There’s silence for a moment, and Yuuri fidgets with his fingers as he waits for Celestino to answer. The scrape of skates across the ice rings like an earache. If Yuuri can’t take his programme to the next level, then he’s not worth being chosen as one of Japan’s representatives. It’s that simple.

“Alright,” Celestino says. “In two weeks we’ll be in Japan for the Championship. If you haven’t perfected the quad flip by then—and I mean _perfected_ —then it’s out.”

“I can do one of my old free skates there,” Yuuri protests. “Surely I can take longer to get this one right?”

If he gets the chance to skate it in competition at all.

“Skating is not about compromise,” Celestino says. “You go in with everything you have. If you’re not prepared to do that, I’m not prepared to support you in it.”

Yuuri gulps. “I’m prepared,” he says. “In two weeks time… I’ll show you a perfect quad flip.”

 

* * *

 

Back at the apartment, Yuuri takes all the posters of Viktor off his walls. He doesn’t want to throw them out—that would be weird—so he folds them up and puts them in one of his spare manila files. When he’s done, he leaves the door conspicuously open—if Viktor notices, when he comes back from wherever he’s been, he doesn’t say anything.

 

* * *

 

“Yuuri, can I watch you practice?”

They’re at a sushi train, something Viktor seems to find endlessly captivating. Every few rounds he’s diverted by a new dish, insisting that he’ll pay, he’ll pay, and in those moments the conversation gets derailed, picking up at entirely new point.

“You’ve seen me at the rink,” Yuuri says, bemused. “Do you really need to ask?”

Viktor perks up a little at that response, like a dog following a ball. “I barely saw anything! I was too busy signing autographs.”

“Great,” Yuuri says. “Reassuring.”

“Yuuri.”

He’ll never get over the way Viktor says it.

“I want to see you in action.”

“Weren’t you paying attention at the GPF?” Yuuri asks. “I’m not much to look at.”

Viktor shakes his head. “I was paying more attention at the GPF than you think,” he says. “But that was almost two years ago. I want to see the _new_ Yuuri Katsuki.”

At a push, Yuuri would call the two of them “friends” now. They do this sometimes, go out for dinner so that Yuuri can feel bad about his financial situation while Viktor waves his AmEx around. Viktor takes longer posing his food than he does eating it, and when he posts it on Instagram he makes sure to tag Yuuri. For a fake relationship, it’s very low-maintenance. There hasn’t been anything to test that for a while, but now—

“You can come,” Yuuri says. He supposes he appreciates Viktor asking. “In return, I have a favour to ask of you.”

“I love favours!” Viktor says.

“At least make sense when you speak English,” Yuuri says. “I, um. Soon I have to go back to Japan for the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship. I’ll be staying with my family in Hasetsu for a week afterwards. I’d like you to meet them.”

Yuuri feels like an idiot the moment the words are out of his mouth. His family know all about his crush on Viktor—they’ll remember the posters, all the times Yuuri ran over their internet quota watching videos and all the late nights they had to drag him home from an international competition livestream at Minako’s. It has to happen, though. They’ve been clamouring to meet Viktor, and not Yuuri’s childhood crush Viktor. Yuuri’s _boyfriend_ Viktor.

When he dares to look up from his plate, Viktor has a gleam in his eyes like nothing Yuuri’s seen before.

“Um, is that a yes?”

“It’s a yes!” Viktor says, gesticulating with his chopsticks. “It’s the loudest yes you’ve ever heard! Yuuri, I would be honoured to meet your family.”

Alongside the relief, another feeling starts to settle. Of all the big mistakes he’s been making, Yuuri wonders if this mightn’t be the biggest yet.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri avoids working on his free skate when Viktor is around. This is an unfortunately common occurrence, because Viktor seems to have decided that the Detroit rink is his home rink too—despite not being a competitive skater anymore—and the rink regulars see no problem with this, accepting him readily.

All except Celestino, that is.

“I never liked him,” Celestino tells Yuuri as they’re finishing up for the day. “Too cocky. And he walks in here like he’s known you his whole life, giving you advice as if he’s your coach.”

Celestino is rarely in such a mood, but Yuuri doesn’t begrudge him the pleasure of a good, long complaining session. Yuuri doubts very much that Celestino never liked Viktor. He remembers them chatting amiably in the background of memories of competitions past. Under the circumstances, though, Celestino’s animosity is understandable. Viktor has taken to watching Yuuri’s short programme with a critical, objective eye, and giving him a barrage of unsolicited advice each time he steps off the rink.

This has only strengthened Yuuri’s resolve on one matter: there is absolutely no way he will let Viktor see his quadruple flip. If that means locking him up in the onsen while Yuuri competes in Japan, then so be it.

He _has_ been practising. It’s not easy, and more often than not Yuuri gets the right number of rotations but stacks the landing. He doesn’t give up, though. The quad flip is the right thing for the music, and for Yuuri. His body is aging every day—if this ends up being his last season, he wants to go out on a high.

“I can tell him to stop coming,” Yuuri says. “Either way, it’s not long until we leave for Japan.”

“And he’ll be coming too,” Celestino says. He sighs, the hard set of his shoulders softening. “I’m not asking you to break up with him over this, Yuuri. But you need to talk to him. He is _not_ your coach.”

“You know it wasn’t his idea to put the quad flip into my programme,” Yuuri says.

Celestino nods. “I know.”

Everything Yuuri does—it’s for himself, for his career. Maybe that makes him selfish, but more than anything, it makes him happy, or gets him as close as he can be. Coming back to figure skating after a year in retirement—selfish, because he knows he’s not good enough to compete on the same stage as all these other skaters, but more than anything, he _wants_ to. Changing his programme to something more flashy—selfish, because it makes Celestino worry for him, but satisfying, on some instinctual level he can’t explain. Pretending to be in a relationship with Viktor—that, too, is selfish. It could so easily have been Yuuri living out a childhood fantasy for however long it would last, but it’s not. It’s so people will know his name.

“Sorry, Celestino,” Yuuri says, “you go ahead. I want to keep practising.”

 _Selfish_.

“Are you sure? You’ve already cooled down.”

“I’ll warm up again,” Yuuri says.

He bends down to re-lace his skates, feeling the chill of the ice behind his back. The one place he can be himself. Staying late to practice is self-destructive, so, so selfish. But the feeling he gets when he finally gets it right—anything is worth that.

 

* * *

 

“—and I’ll send you a bank transfer with the rent money as soon as I can,” Yuuri says. “Is that all?”

“You worry too much,” Phichit says, patting him on the shoulder. “Go, and have fun.”

Yuuri double-checks the front pocket of his suitcase for his passport and his visa documentation. He pats down his coat, making sure he’s taken out the keys and given them to Phichit. He remembers handing them over. He checks anyway.

“You’ll be _fine_ ,” Phichit says, and Yuuri pulls him into a tight hug, so he’ll remember what it feels like when he’s miles away.

The moment is interrupted by Viktor coming back up the stairs. “Okay! That’s the last of my things in the taxi. Are you ready, Yuuri?”

“I’m ready,” Yuuri says. He isn’t, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he says it anyway, because he doesn’t want to be selfish about this moment, too.

“Great!” Viktor says. “I want to get there early so we can do some shopping.”

He really is unstoppable. Yuuri says one final goodbye to Phichit before he’s dragged out of the apartment with Viktor’s hand clamped around his arm. Viktor bounds down the stairs and Yuuri follows behind him, lugging his suitcase, pausing as it clunks against the railing. There’s a freshness in the air that feels almost like winter. It’s a shift in the season, a day full of promise.

Yuuri can only hope that he’ll make the most of it.

When they’re in the taxi, Viktor says, “I noticed you took down all your posters.”

“It was too weird,” Yuuri says. “For both of us, I think.”

Viktor hums. “Yes, I think so. But, Yuuri—I am flattered.”

“Thanks,” Yuuri says. “Um, I don’t really want to talk about it, if that’s okay.”

“It’s okay,” Viktor says.

They fall into silence for the rest of the drive. After that, it’s hard to adjust to the buzz of the airport. It’s almost too much for Yuuri, and once their bags are checked in and they’ve gone through customs, Viktor takes gleefully to the duty-free shopping and Yuuri heads straight for the gate, sitting back and closing his eyes.

That’s where Celestino finds him, asleep with his head resting on Viktor’s shoulder. Yuuri blinks into awareness at the sound of the boarding call, wondering when Viktor got there, in time to hear Celestino say, “Sorry I’m late. My car wouldn’t start, and then I had to call a cab.”

“Shh,” Viktor says, “you’ll wake him.”

“I’m awake,” Yuuri says, pulling himself upright.

“Oh, good,” Viktor says. “Because we have to board now.”

Another announcement rings out—Yuuri finds that he’s too tired to process English properly.

“That’s my row,” Celestino says. “I might see you two on the plane.”

“Sure,” Viktor says, waving him off.

“How long was I asleep?” Yuuri asks. He stretches up, his arm knocking against Viktor’s. Falling asleep on someone’s shoulder—that’s the kind of thing _couples_ do. As the thought dawns, Yuuri becomes more and more self-conscious.

Viktor shrugs against him. “Not long. Maybe half an hour. Did you sleep poorly last night?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Yuuri says, “I can sleep on the flight.”

“Look after yourself,” Viktor says, and Yuuri almost laughs—if there’s one thing he _hasn’t_ been doing, then that’s it.

 

* * *

 

At the rink, late at night, long after everyone else has left, Yuuri and Celestino remain. _One more time_ , Yuuri tells himself, _just one more_. They have the sound system hooked up to Yuuri’s phone. _La Campanella_ pings against every wall, every bleacher, through the grooves Yuuri’s skates had left in the ice from running through the programme again, and again, and again. The sound seems to blossom as he twists and curves, and something like lightness replaces all his blood and bones and the beating of Yuuri’s heart. This feeling, this is why he skates. The past, the present, the future—it all rushes towards him at once, like a press of air that opens his shoulder blades into wings. The posters of Viktor, taken down. Tomorrow, he will wake up early and get on a plane to Tokyo, and from there, a train to the scene of his next victory. Because it _will_ be a victory.

It is selfish. Yuuri knows that.

As he lands the quad flip, perfectly, for the first time, he doesn’t care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who else is painfully unprepared for yoi to end this week? fun things i did to pass the time in between: spending an hour listening to piano music and choosing yuuri's programme for this fic, as well as "choreographing" where the quad flip would go in la campanella. do give it a listen if you can. it's insane. liszt really knew where it was at.
> 
> btw, thank you for the 300+ kudos... it really means a lot to me!


	6. Chapter 6

It’s raining lightly when the plane lands, a drizzle that persists while they’re in the taxi to the hotel. Yuuri has long since reconciled himself with the innate strangeness of staying in hotels in his home country, but this time it rings with an edge of surreality that he can only put down to Viktor’s presence.

At the front desk, he takes off his rain-splattered glasses and blinks into awkward eye-contact with the concierge. “Twin room,” he says in Japanese, “under _Katsuki_.”

The concierge taps at her computer for a bit, making small talk about the weather, before producing two key cards. “Here you are. Enjoy your stay!”

“Thank you,” Yuuri says.

“Um,” the concierge stutters, “I’m sorry if this is invasive, but are you _the_ Yuuri Katsuki? The figure skater?”

Yuuri feels his face heat up. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Good luck in the championships,” the concierge says. “We’ll all be cheering for you.”

Yuuri doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just smiles and looks away. He pulls his suitcase hurriedly towards the lift, where Viktor is waiting with the porter, struggling to give instructions about all of his luggage in stilted phrasebook Japanese. Yuuri’s second-hand embarrassment overrides his anxiety, and he steps in to smooth things over.

The first thing the porter says to him is, “Yuuri Katsuki, right? You’re Japan’s returning ace!”

Returning ace? That’s what they’re calling him? Yuuri makes a point of not reading newspapers or forums because he knows how negative they can get. It never occurs to him that they might also be saying something positive.

He nods curtly. “Yes, that’s me. I’m sorry. I’m very tired. We’ll handle the baggage.”

Viktor doesn’t understand Japanese so Yuuri feels safe contradicting himself. He hauls his suitcase into the lift after Viktor and all his things and leaves a braille imprint on his finger with how fast he hits the button to close the doors.

Viktor is silent. It’s a loud silence—Yuuri can hear Viktor’s mind working.

“You turned away a fan,” Viktor says.

The lights above the lift door whir between the floors. Yuuri and Viktor aren’t quite staying in the penthouse suite, but they’re near the top.

“I get nervous,” Yuuri says, very quietly.

There’s a loud _ding_ as the lift reaches their floor.

“That’s no excuse,” Viktor says. “He was going to help me with my bags, and you turned him away, even though he clearly admired you. _Because_ he admired you. Yuuri, that’s no way to treat a fan! You need to learn to be more—”

“More what?” Yuuri snaps. He stills. “I’m sorry. I’m tired.”

Viktor’s shoulders slump. “I know.”

“Let’s just go to sleep,” Yuuri says. They have one free day to rest before the competition starts. He’ll get his nerve back by then.

He unlocks the room and holds the door open while Viktor brings in the first of his suitcases.

“Ah, Yuuri,” Viktor says, “you got a twin room.”

“What were you expecting?” Yuuri asks. He’s exhausted. He doesn’t want to have this conversation.

“ _Well_ ,” Viktor says, drawing out the word, “what would people say if they caught on that you and your boyfriend aren’t sleeping in the same bed?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri says, “they’d probably come to the conclusion that our relationship is still new and we don’t want to rush things.”

They fall back into the same uneasy silence. Once all of Viktor’s bags are in, he locks himself in the bathroom, and Yuuri flops onto his bed and dozes.

When he wakes up, it’s dark outside, and there’s a faint patter of rain against the window. Viktor is on the other bed fast asleep, the hotel room lights blazing overhead. Yuuri gets up and switches off the lights one by one, leaving only the bathroom light and his bedside lamp to guide his steps. He sits cross-legged on his bed and pulls out his phone—another bright light, directed straight into his eyes. Thankfully Viktor’s desensitised him to that.

For the first time since that time on the sidewalk in New York, Yuuri chances a look at social media. He starts by googling himself and looking at the news articles. There it is: _Japan’s Returning Ace!_ among other such headlines; declamatory, foolish overstatements. Only a few of the articles, mostly the ones in English, mention his relationship with Viktor.

It’s strange to see it talked about. Without the press of the international media against his boundaries, Yuuri was happy to continue his fake relationship with Viktor as though nothing was going on. They were just going to let it run its course. Yuuri has been putting in all the effort he can to convince the people around them that it’s real—although Phichit saw right through that—but he hasn’t had to work for the social media side of it.

That’s the other thing. The photo of the kiss, the one from Phichit’s Instagram, is _everywhere_. It’s been reposted on forums and twitter and other Instagram accounts with various different captions. There are edits of it on tumblr, purikura-style hearts and glitter floating around the centrepiece, the kiss.

Yuuri regularly forgets that he is what most people would consider a  “celebrity.” This… is a good reminder.

 _And for nothing_ , he thinks. He has fans, admirers, but for what? He screwed up on the world stage and everyone saw. He quit figure skating, because that was the honourable thing to do after such a defeat. And now he’s back, out of pure self-service. No-one really wants him back, do they? Surely by now they know he’s a failure.

Not for the first time, he wonders why he’s doing this at all. Because it’s the only thing that makes him happy, yes. But is it the _right_ thing to do?

He turns off his phone and puts it face-down on the bedside table, before flicking the light switch for the lamp and trying, _trying_ to sleep.

 

* * *

 

They think Yuuri can’t hear them. He realises this soon into the conversation, when his name is mentioned carelessly and with no consequence.

Dinner was tense—Yuuri could tell there was something off between Celestino and Viktor, and it only got worse when alcohol was added into the mix. Now, they’re outside the hotel room, talking in the corridor. Do they think Yuuri is asleep? The Championship is tomorrow, so he _should_ be, but he’s always found it hard to sleep the night before a big skate.

“Yuuri has made his choice,” Celestino is saying.

“Do you really believe,” Viktor says, “that he wants me to be his coach?”

Yuuri nearly gasps aloud at that. He rolls sideways on his bed, inching closer to the door. He knew Celestino was worried about Viktor’s interference—just how serious was he?

“I don’t think this is a question of belief,” Celestino says. “You may not remember, Viktor, but I remember well—almost two years ago, now. He asked you to be his coach. It doesn’t matter if he still feels the same way. He planted the idea in your mind, and now you’re trying to—”

“I’m _not_ trying to coach him,” Viktor says, more exasperated than angry. “You’re wasting your time. I remember the events of that evening very clearly. _Yuuri_ is the one who’s forgotten.”

Forgotten _what_? Yuuri’s mind is ticking over, trying to make some meaning out of the conversation he’s hearing. Maybe he’s dreaming. Maybe in this dream, he asked Viktor to be his coach—but when? Almost two years ago? When would he have been anywhere near Viktor two years ago? At the GPF? But that’s impossible.

“He really hasn’t brought it up? At all?” Celestino asks.

“No,” Viktor says, “he hasn’t. And I’d be grateful if you didn’t either.”

Celestino laughs, loud enough to wake someone. “ _I’m_ not going to put the idea into his head.”

It’s a bit too late for that. Yuuri, in another lifetime, had dreamt about meeting Viktor as his equal on the ice. He had imagined that the only way for him to get to Viktor’s level would be to imitate his style. He _had_ thought of Viktor coaching him. Of course he had. But he had always known it was an impossibility. A child’s fantasy. Have Viktor and Celestino mistaken him for some other Yuuri, one who’s living his dreams?

Except… this Yuuri, the Yuuri curled up on a hotel bed the night before competition, eavesdropping on his coach and his childhood-crush-turned-pretend-boyfriend, _is_ living his dreams.

He gets to his feet and opens the door onto the dim corridor. Viktor and Celestino turn to look at him, twin expressions of surprise on their face. Yuuri almost laughs at how stupid they look.

“Hey,” he says, “can you two keep it down? I don’t know what you’re doing out here, but I have to skate tomorrow. I need to sleep.”

Viktor is the first to react, his expression softening. “Of course, Yuuri. We were just finishing up.”

“You rest,” Celestino says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He heads down the corridor towards the lift, and Viktor follows Yuuri back inside the hotel room.

“Have you sorted it out?” Yuuri asks.

“Hmm?”

“Your weird grudge.” Yuuri sighs, sitting on the edge of his bed. “I don’t want you arguing with my coach.”

“We weren’t—” Viktor begins. He stops, frowning, clearly deliberating. “We’re fine now.”

“That’s all I need to hear,” Yuuri says. “Goodnight, Viktor.”

Viktor looks at him for a long moment. Then, he breaks into a smile. “Goodnight, Yuuri. You know… I can’t wait to see you skate tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

Last year, in the Grand Prix series, Japan’s representative didn’t medal in either of his qualifying events. He was young—seventeen then, eighteen now—and relatively inexperienced. It was a let down by anyone’s standards, and yet, that doesn’t seem to have phased him.

Kenjirou Minami comes up to Yuuri’s shoulder, maybe, but he has a larger than life presence.

It all seems to shrink the moment he and Yuuri meet.

“You!” Minami all but squeals. “Y-you, you’re…”

Yuuri blinks down at him.

“Yuuri Katsuki!” Minami says, so fast it might as well be one word. “I can’t believe it, I’m finally meeting you! Yuuri, you’re my inspiration! Wait until you see my short programme! I watched so many videos of you while I worked on it, so you’re sure to like it.”

“Um,” Yuuri says, “thank you?”

Minami covers his face with his hands. “He spoke to me… !”

Yuuri never knows what to do in these situations. It’s never been quite this bad, either. He looks around for support, but Celestino is chatting to one of the other coaches and Viktor must be in the stalls already.

There’s something Viktor said last night that pops into Yuuri’s head now, that Yuuri pushes certain people away _because_ they’re his fans. He pushes other people away for other reasons, but this—this is one of _those_ situations, like two nights ago in the hotel.

Yuuri clears his throat before he can change his mind. “Well, good luck today. I hope to see you on the podium.”

Minami goes off like a hand grenade; all it took was Yuuri pulling the pin. “I won’t disappoint you, Yuuri!” he shouts, and Yuuri is pretty sure the whole rink can hear.

 

* * *

 

After the short programme, Minami is a few points ahead. Yuuri knows why—he’s been focusing so hard on his free skate that his practice invariably neglected the short programme. A quadruple flip, at what cost?

In the kiss and cry, Celestino says to him, “You did your best. I don’t need to tell you why it wasn’t enough. It doesn’t matter now. You’ll make it up tomorrow—the free skate makes all the difference.”

On the bus back to the hotel, Yuuri googles himself again. It’s addictive. He finds analyses of his performance on Japanese forums. He finds one American blog post with the headline: _Viktor Nikiforov’s boyfriend sitting in second place after lacklustre skate today_. Yuuri closes the tab and turns off his phone.

In the hotel room, Viktor picks apart every detail of his skate. It’s not mean-spirited, probably; there is truth in everything Viktor says, but it isn’t what Yuuri needs to hear right now. His fingers itch to switch his phone back on, to hear the criticism from strangers—not from someone like Viktor, someone close. Someone who, inexplicably, Yuuri cares about.

“Ah, sorry,” Viktor says. “My coach—my old coach—Yakov, he used to lecture me the moment I got off the ice. I guess it’s a habit I picked up.”

“You’re not my coach,” Yuuri says, still fidgeting with his phone, not looking up.

Viktor is quiet for a moment. “Do you want me to be?”

“No,” Yuuri says. “I have a coach.”

As he says it, he’s certain. Viktor may be many things to him—his inspiration, his former crush, his current “boyfriend”—but he is _not_ Yuuri’s coach. Yuuri doesn’t need him that way. And he doesn’t want to make their relationship any more complicated than it already is.

 

* * *

 

On the morning of the free skate, the rain has finally let up. With it, Yuuri’s mind clears. He has practised this, over and over. He knows the step sequences better than the route from his apartment in Detroit to the rink. He has perfected all his jumps, even the elusive quadruple flip.

He hasn’t told Viktor about that part.

When the glare of the ice hits his eyes, everything feels right, like the stars have aligned to put Yuuri here, in this rink, in this now, and he can’t think of anything he’d rather be doing than listening to _La Campanella_ and skating his heart out.

This, Yuuri thinks, is what it must feel like to be a phoenix. A phoenix can die like any other mortal creature, but when it bursts aflame and reduces itself to cinders, it rises again from those ashes, made anew. Yuuri has no wings, no such grandeur of fire and magic. He has himself, the ice, and the music, and that’s all he ever needed. That’s why he’s doing this.

He has never felt so light. Halfway through the skate he remembers all his anxieties, one-handing out of the quadruple flip, but now he’s on autopilot and he just lets it happen, picks himself up and keeps going.

It all hits when the music stops. He collapses to the ice, the cold stinging against his fingers. He can’t tear himself away.

When it’s been long enough, or however long it feels, Yuuri hauls himself off the ice and towards the kiss and cry. Celestino is waiting for him rinkside, and pulls him into a crushing hug.

“You did well,” Celestino says. “You did so, so well.”

If only it would sink in. Yuuri _has_ done well. There, hanging around his neck, is the gold medal to prove it. This medal doesn’t mean what he wants it to mean, though, what he _needs_ it to mean. It’s just the Championships. This is only the first step in rebuilding his career. He mightn’t be chosen to represent Japan. They could see right through him.

He’s about to leave the kiss and cry when he hears someone calling his name. Loud enough to cut through the crowd, then louder, excited, higher-pitched.

“Yuuri!”

 _Viktor_ —

When Yuuri trusts himself enough to look in the direction of the sound, he sees Viktor running through the crowd, waving his arms above his head. Yuuri gets to his feet, instinct drawing him out of the kiss and cry camera’s path, and a second later Viktor is right there in front of him, launched like a projectile, grabbing Yuuri’s face to him and kissing him like a do-over of that night in the Plaza, one that won’t ever fade from Yuuri’s memory.

 _Right_ , Yuuri thinks numbly. _My boyfriend_.

He acts the part—he puts his arms around Viktor’s back, pulling him close to the point of overbalancing. Viktor pulls back a second later, a stupid grin on his face but a wicked glint in his eyes.

“You did a quad flip,” he says.

“I could have done it better,” Yuuri says, keenly aware of how close he is to Viktor, how many people are watching. “I landed it in practice, but… it’s different, with people watching.”

“Alright, so your landing was a little lacking,” Viktor says. He puts a bit more distance between them. “Next time, you need to prepare your momentum earlier. You had the right number of rotations, but there wasn’t enough force behind it for a clean landing. Learning to keep your arm raised might help with avoiding the impulse to one-hand out of the jump, and it’ll get you more points. Even though it’s harder, I think you can—”

“Viktor,” Yuuri interrupts. “You’re not my coach.”

“Right!” Viktor places his palms flat to Yuuri’s chest. “You’ll have to try harder than that to get me to shut up.”

Viktor’s unprecedented self-awareness aside, Yuuri’s first thought is that he could kiss Viktor again—which is a bad path to go down. He stops himself before he can consider it further. Just like being coached by Viktor, being kissed by Viktor is something Yuuri contemplated in exquisite detail as a sixteen-year-old. When it comes down to it, kissing is kissing. It doesn’t feel any different with Viktor than it has with everyone else Yuuri’s kissed. And just like being coached by Viktor, being kissed by Viktor is a distraction to the task at hand: a _fake_ relationship.

“We should head back to the hotel,” Yuuri says. “I don’t want to be around long enough for journalists to start asking questions.”

“About what?” Viktor slings an arm around Yuuri’s shoulder as they walk away. He has to stoop a bit to make it work. “Everyone already knows we’re an item.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Yuuri says. He draws his mouth into a mock-serious frown. “Viktor. I screwed up a quad flip. I don’t think I can face the public ever again.”

It takes Viktor a second to catch on—when he does, he laughs, bright and genuine. “You’re Japan’s returning ace,” Viktor says. “If you want to go to the Grand Prix, you’ll have to start doing better.”

He’s joking, too, but Yuuri takes it to heart. He will. He _will_ do better. It’s the only thing he knows how to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before you ask: no, things won't be resolved so easily. we're not even halfway through.
> 
> i wanted to post this on viktor's birthday, since i posted the first chapter on yuuri's. happy chanukkah/christmas/non-denominational december 25th!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're confused—yes, i changed my username. it's the same old fic as always! no impostors (ha ha)!
> 
> sorry for the long wait between chapters. also sorry in advance; things are about to get a bit slower because of Real Life™... but i actually have no excuse for these last few weeks, i put this on the backburner to write something else and uhhhhhh i churned out almost 40k between chapter 5 and now. so?? watch this space??? brand new viktuuri fic coming soon to an ao3 account near you. (mine.) (at the moment it's in the capable hands of my beta reader.) in the meantime, this chapter is slightly longer than usual. thank you for all the kudos and comments and continued readership!

Yuuri gets the call the morning after, waiting on the platform for his train to Hasetsu. It’s overcast and humid and he feels awkward in his own skin, weighed down by all the layers of clothing he didn’t need to wear and hemmed in by Viktor’s suitcases. Yuuri leaves Viktor, walks further down the platform, to take the call. He knows Viktor barely understands Japanese—although he’s proven himself adept at a couple of choice phrases,  such as “A bottle of wine, please!” and “What’s the alcohol content of this saké?”—but Yuuri still doesn’t want him to hear the conversation, not for the way he knows he’ll react.

Luck is on his side today, because he doesn’t need to react as badly as he thought he might.

“Who was that on the phone?” Viktor asks when he returns.

“Ah, it was an official from the JSF,” Yuuri says. “I’ve been selected as a representative for the Grand Prix series. He said I need to get back to them with my theme and be ready to attend a press conference in two weeks, which means we’ll have to extend our stay, but…”

He trails off as Viktor pulls him close, an exuberant arm around his shoulders. “Yuuri, that’s amazing! You’re going to the Grand Prix series!”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. It doesn’t feel entirely real. He bites down on a self-deprecating remark. That’s not how he needs to be thinking right now.

“Have you got any ideas for your theme?” Viktor asks.

“A few,” Yuuri says.

Viktor leans in closer. “Will you tell me?”

Yuuri huffs out a laugh; he keeps his gaze trained very pointedly in the other direction. “Maybe.”

“And your allocations?” Viktor presses. “Did you get your allocations?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “Skate America and NHK.”

In an instant, Viktor has pulled back, whipped out his phone. “The first and the last! Yuuri, that’s a mixed blessing. On the upside, you’ll have a lot of time to prepare before NHK. But you need to get in shape for Skate America—you need to get your quad flip perfect—and that won’t be easy.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Yuuri says.

“Any time,” Viktor says.

Their train pulls up, a perfect distraction. The task of getting Viktor’s suitcases—which, although many, is not _all_ of his suitcases; the rest are still in Detroit—takes most of their concentration and effort, and Yuuri uses his exhaustion as an excuse to avoid talking to Viktor, even as they sit side-by-side, knees touching. He stays awake for the journey, and jumpy like a live wire, so it’s a relief when they finally arrive in familiar Hasetsu.

It’s been too long.

Minako is there to meet him, as she always is. To Yuuri’s embarrassment, she has a banner: _Welcome home Japan’s returning ace!_

“Ah,” Yuuri says, “you didn’t have to.”

“Of course I did, of course!” she says. “Yuuri—welcome home. We’ve all missed you. I’m sure it’ll be nice for—”

She stops suddenly, going very red in the face.

“Minako?”

“Is that—”

Yuuri jumps; he’s been speaking Japanese this entire time, and Viktor is standing behind him, a pleasantly bewildered smile on his face.

“I’m so sorry,” Yuuri says in English, “I didn’t introduce you. Minako, this is Viktor.”

Minako covers her face with both hands. “Viktor Nikiforov,” she says, more to her hands than to anyone else, “in the flesh…”

“Hi,” Viktor says, unperturbed. “You’re Yuuri’s ballet teacher, aren’t you?”

It only takes seconds for Minako to snap out of her mood. She flips into battle stance and points a finger at Viktor. “You’re his _boyfriend_.”

“N-not in public,” Yuuri says. “Please, let’s have this conversation at home.”

Viktor nods. “I understand. Yuuri, show me to your bedroom!”

In Japanese, Yuuri tells Minako, “He doesn’t speak English very well. He means _house_.”

Still, it leaves him blushing all the way back to Yu-topia. Maybe Viktor doesn’t know he’s doing it, or he does, but he doesn’t intend for Yuuri to get this flustered—either way, Viktor _flirts_ , and he flirts prodigiously. Maybe he’s acting. They’re supposed to be dating, after all.

Minako and Viktor are getting on well, making small talk. It’s too late for Yuuri to go back on his promise to introduce Viktor to his parents. That doesn’t stop him from wishing he hadn’t made the promise in the first place.

They arrive at the onsen as it’s getting dark. There are a few guests hanging around the public bar, but not many. It’s off-season, and the tourist industry in Hasetsu isn’t what it used to be.

Yuuri is given a warm reception, to make up for the chill in the air. His mum hugs him close and tells him how proud she is of his victory—from the other side of the bar his dad echoes that sentiment. She rushes back and forth between the front room and the kitchen, preparing katsudon for the celebration.

“It’s so good,” she says, over and over, “so good to have you back!”

Mari is customarily aloof. “You did good,” she says. “We were all watching on TV.”

“How embarrassing,” Yuuri says.

“The commentators were kind enough,” Mari says, shrugging. If she’s curious about Viktor, she doesn’t show it. She waits until the food is ready and then makes her excuses.

Viktor’s suitcases are abandoned at the door and he sits down across from Yuuri. They eat in silence until Yuuri’s mum joins them, fussing over Viktor with stars in her eyes. He is similarly taken with her—the three of them converse in two languages.

“And how did you meet Yuuri?” she asks. “Was it at the party where that charming photo of the two of you was taken?”

Yuuri translates, watching Viktor’s mouth spread into a grin as he gets to the end of the question.

“We met before then,” Viktor says, “and we were emailing each other for a while before meeting up in person again.”

Yuuri’s mum nods. She understands English a lot better than she speaks it. In Japanese, she asks Yuuri, “You did a very good job of keeping him secret. I thought you would’ve told us if you met your hero!”

“He’s not my hero, mum,” Yuuri says, embarrassed. “We’re friends.”

“A little more than that, I hope,” she says.

Yuuri nods, breaking eye contact. He glances at Viktor, who, as always, seems perfectly content to be left out of the conversation. Yuuri doesn’t understand that—he would be frustrated if there were two people in front of him talking in Russian, and _clearly_ talking about him.

“I have to get back to the kitchen,” his mum says. “You should show Viktor to your room, put his things down, and then take him to one of the baths.”

There are a couple of problems with that sentence: one, the assumption that Viktor will be sleeping in Yuuri’s room, which is logical but no less daunting; two, the suggestion to show Viktor to the baths. Yuuri has seen a lot of naked people, growing up at an onsen resort, but never anyone he’s dated. He’s never even been past first base, let alone with Viktor.

This is going to be a _disaster_.

On her way out, his mum puts a hand on Viktor’s shoulder. “Please take care of my son,” she says, in English, and Yuuri feels like crying—there’s his mother, all caring and protective, invested in his relationship with Viktor, and it’s _fake_. She probably looked up how to say that before they arrived. For nothing, for a farce.

Viktor must see the way Yuuri’s resolve crumbles, because he reaches across the table and puts a hand on Yuuri’s wrist.

“Hey. Everything okay?”

Yuuri swallows. “Yeah, fine.”

It’s not.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not as bad as Yuuri thinks it’s going to be. Viktor is more than happy to be put on a futon on Yuuri’s floor—so long as they’re in the same room, that’s his only condition—and he declines the baths, for that night, anyway. Viktor says he’s tired, and Yuuri does wonder if that’s the truth, but he’s more than happy to accept it.

The next morning, Viktor is up bright and early and making a nuisance of himself. So, everything’s back to normal.

He jumps onto the end of Yuuri’s bed and slams his hands down on the mattress. “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty! No time to waste!”

More than anything, the reason why Yuuri and Viktor will never truly be compatible is that Yuuri sleeps late and takes at least two hours to become a functioning human being when he wakes, whereas Viktor is a person who draws his energy from the sun and sleeps early, bursting into life the moment the morning light hits his eyes.

“No,” Yuuri groans, slinging an arm over his eyes. “Tired.”

“Oh, well,” Viktor says, “I guess I’ll have to ask your sister to show me around Hasetsu.”

Infuriatingly, that does the trick. Yuuri scrambles upright, blinking to readjust. His glasses are on his desk and Viktor looks like a pale blob.

“Are you,” Yuuri begins. He clears his throat. “Are you wearing anything?”

“Just pants,” Viktor says flippantly.

“I’m not going anywhere until you put a shirt on,” Yuuri says, rubbing his eyes.

“You’ll have to be more comfortable with this—” Viktor gestures to his torso, “—when you show me the baths later.”

Yuuri shakes his head, but Viktor isn’t there to see, because he’s already sprung to his feet, rooting around in one of his suitcases. The day is off to a great start.

They start at the castle, and Yuuri explains to a delighted Viktor that it’s actually the facade of a ninja house. Then, Yuuri walks him along the coast, pointing out landmarks and filling the silences with anecdotes from his childhood. Nothing too personal; enough to keep Viktor occupied. Viktor takes off his shoes and rolls up his trouser legs, running through the shallow breaking waves. Yuuri watches from a distance—he’s not in the mood to get wet. There’s something calming about it. He can forget about the Grand Prix and choosing a theme, about his fake relationship and all the expectations he’s trying to live up to.

Viktor waves back at him. “Yuuri! Take a photo of me!”

Yuuri’s in a good mood, so he obliges. He uploads it to his Instagram: _back home… @v-nikiforov is here too._

Ankle-deep in wet sand, Viktor takes his phone out of his pocket and a second later Yuuri gets the notification that Viktor’s liked it, as well as a reply entirely composed of heart emojis. Unbidden, Yuuri finds himself smiling fondly at his phone. He knows why he was so set on distancing himself emotionally from Viktor, keeping him at arm’s length so he wouldn’t get ensnared by his childhood crush. But when he stops to think about it, the real Viktor, not the man in the posters, is more than a good friend, more than a pretend boyfriend.

The next photo on Yuuri’s Instagram is of Viktor looking at his phone while a wave of unprecedented force hits him from behind.

After the beach, Viktor demands that Yuuri show him the rink where he learnt to skate.

“Ice Castle Hasetsu doesn’t get much business these days,” Yuuri tells him. “We might have the rink to ourselves.”

“All the better,” Viktor says. “You can show me that quad flip again. We can work on your techni—”

“Absolutely not,” Yuuri says.

The rink is almost empty—Yuuko and Takeshi are on shift, which means their triplets are skating around only partially supervised. On the bright side, they don’t notice Yuuri and Viktor entering.

Yuuko does. “Yuuri! And—no way! You brought him!”

“I told you I would,” Yuuri says.

“I still can’t believe you’re dating him,” Yuuko says. “You! And _him_! Yuuri, all those times we cut his picture out of magazines, all those times you learnt his routines—you are _literally_ living the dream!”

“English, Yuuko,” Yuuri says. It’s overwhelming for him too.

She stops, blushing. “Right. Um, hi, Viktor… !”

Maybe it’s that her voice carries—whatever it is, something summons the triplets, their father traipsing in after them. There is little to stand between Viktor and three exuberant seven-year-olds who have been raised on the History of Figure Skating According to Yuuko Nishigori.

Viktor is a people person, happy to entertain with selfies and autographs, and Yuuri leaves him to it. He climbs over the counter and picks a pair of skates in his size and makes for the rink. This is solid ground. He was practically raised on this ice. It’s cold and quiet and he’s happier here than anywhere else, maybe anywhere else in the world.

Takeshi’s voice rings out across the rink: “Yuuri! You’re here after all.”

“Of course I’m here,” Yuuri says. He skates towards the edge of the rink. “Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

“We were all surprised when you came out of retirement,” Takeshi says. “Ah—I mean that in the best way possible! We thought you’d go back to Detroit and that would be it. Superstar Yuuri Katsuki, back in action.”

“You know that was never going to happen,” Yuuri says.

“The JSF chose you as an unseeded representative for the Grand Prix,” Takeshi says. “That’s a bit of a big deal.”

“I guess so,” Yuuri says.

“And you’re dating your idol,” Takeshi adds.

Yuuri sighs. “He’s human too, you know.”

“I’m sure he is,” Takeshi says, “but I’m yet to see any concrete proof.” He pauses, frowning. “You know we’re all proud of you, don’t you? You’re doing what you love. That’s what’s most important.”

There it is again—everyone here is so invested in Yuuri’s “relationship” with Viktor because they remember how he used to be. Even Phichit never really experienced the full force of Yuuri’s obsession. Yuuko and Takeshi, on the other hand… they were there when Yuuri convinced his parents to buy him a poodle like Viktor’s. They watched all his early attempts at copying Viktor’s routines. And that enthusiasm is infectious. A very small part of Yuuri’s mind has already decided that he has to maintain this fake relationship for as long as he possibly can, and not just for his own sake.

The sound from the reception area bursts into the rink as Viktor throws open the doors. Yuuri and Takeshi both turn to stare at him. He has a pair of skates looped perilously around his neck.

“Yuuri,” he says, more a declaration than a greeting, “let’s skate!”

Takeshi reaches over the barrier and clamps a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder. “He’s as much of a personality as he seems, huh?”

When Yuuri glances back, Viktor is lacing his skates, occasionally pausing to pose for the triplets’ cameras.

“More,” Yuuri says.

 

* * *

 

The tension in Yuuri’s muscles far outweighs his fear of getting into the baths with Viktor. He is exhausted, naked, and shameless, lowering himself into the water. Viktor is already there, submerged up to his ears. Yuuri has never seen him this quiet.

He does speak, once Yuuri’s settled down.

“Thank you for today. I had fun.”

“Me too,” Yuuri says. He debates over whether or not to say the next thing that comes to mind. He says it anyway. “I’m glad I got to see you skate again.”

Viktor sinks back beneath the water, then springs up, splashing Yuuri. He’s grinning conspiratorially when he asks, “Did I inspire you?”

“You know you always do,” Yuuri says.

Sighing, Viktor shifts so that he’s sitting beside Yuuri. Maybe it’s easier for him to say this when he’s not looking Yuuri in the eye: “I miss skating.”

“Why did you quit, then?” Yuuri asks.

If Viktor hadn’t retired, they could’ve skated against each other this season. But then, they wouldn’t have met the way they did. So much would be different.

“You know why,” Viktor says, annoyed. “I came third at the GPF. I would’ve done even worse if—um, Leroy?—if the Canadian hadn’t choked. I should’ve seen that as a sign. But it took coming second at Russian Nationals to open my eyes. Losing to a fifteen-year-old twice in a row… people start to talk. They start to say you’re not good enough anymore. That you don’t deserve to be on the podium at all.”

“You didn’t compete at Worlds because you didn’t want to lose,” Yuuri says. His voice comes out very quiet. This isn’t a side of Viktor he’s seen before.

“No,” Viktor says. “I never minded losing. I liked winning because I liked surprising people. I won because I was always doing something new. I stopped winning was because I lost the ability to surprise. It’s that simple. I got old.”

With Viktor sitting next to him looking so effortlessly handsome, Yuuri’s instinct is to say something rude and roll his eyes, but he holds himself back. Twenty-eight _is_ old for a figure skater. Somehow, though, Yuuri doesn’t think that’s the whole story. He doesn’t press.

Instead, he says, “Watching you today wasn’t like any other time I’ve seen you skate.”

“That’s because I didn’t do any jumps,” Viktor says. “I didn’t want Yuuko’s girls to get footage of me falling.”

Yuuri can tell Viktor is poking fun at himself, but there’s still a sadness to his tone.

“That’s not what I meant,” Yuuri says. “It was… the _emotion_ was different. You weren’t performing or anything. You looked like you were skating for fun. You looked happy.”

“Happy,” Viktor says, like he’s learning the word for the first time. He makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “I’ll need to think about that one.”

Yuuri nudges him in the elbow. “Hey. You’re on holiday. No moping in the onsen—that’s house rules.”

Not counting the many, many times Yuuri has sat exactly where he is right now, doing exactly what he’s telling Viktor not to.

Viktor doesn’t respond right away. He gets to his feet, flooding Yuuri’s personal space with the water he displaces. “I’m going to get an early night,” he says. “Tomorrow, let’s go back to the Ice Castle. I’ll help you with your quad flip.”

“You’re still not my coach,” Yuuri says. He’s more awake now, and the shame is back—he keeps his eyes fixed straight ahead so that he doesn’t imagine what Viktor looks like, standing somewhere behind him and wrapping a towel around his waist.

“I know,” Viktor says. “Doesn’t mean I can’t help you.”

Yuuri hears Viktor’s footsteps receding. He sinks deeper into the water, letting the warmth comfort him. But it’s like Viktor left a gaping hole in the bath, a place beside Yuuri that no-one and nothing else can fill, and it leads Yuuri to an inevitable conclusion, one that he’s been putting off for longer than he’d care to admit.

He’s not just doing this for the exposure it gives him, and he’s not only compelled to maintain it so he doesn’t disappoint everyone who’s invested in it. Viktor is more complicated than he tries to make himself seem. Yuuri has met his idol, his inspiration, discovered that Viktor Nikiforov is as human as anyone else—and it hasn’t changed the way he sees Viktor, the Viktor he met at a party and kissed when he was drunk.

And Yuuri’s crush mightn’t be as _childhood_ as he thought it was.


	8. Chapter 8

This shouldn’t be weird. Yuuri has kissed Viktor. (Twice.) He’s seen Viktor naked. (Last night.) But waking up, rolling onto his side to see Viktor asleep on his bedroom floor?

It’s weird.

Yuuri has never been awake before Viktor. That’s not how they work. Now Yuuri sees that Viktor is a different person when he sleeps; he looks very small, very soft. His hair is mussed and his eyes are closed—it’s just about the least expressive Yuuri has ever seen him. And he’s _here_ , in Yuuri’s childhood bedroom, the one that used to be covered with posters of Viktor. At least the framed photo on his desk isn’t there anymore. He’s not sure where that went. His mum probably moved it while he was away.

Quietly, so that he doesn’t wake Viktor, Yuuri gets out of bed and shuffles down the corridor towards the shrine. He let Vicchan down by forgetting to visit yesterday, or the day before. But so much had been happening, and Yuuri couldn’t tear himself away from it, drawn into the whirlwind Viktor brings with him wherever he goes.

He kneels at the shrine. “Hi, Vicchan.”

A breeze rustles the trees outside, brushing them against the windows. Yuuri sighs. Nothing good has ever come of these visits. He feels like crying. He wishes he was back in Detroit, in his tiny room with the broken lamp, wishes he’d never—

“Yuuri?”

He jumps, nearly knocking over an incense burner. “Viktor, I—”

“Sorry to startle you,” Viktor says, and he comes to kneel next to Yuuri. “You don’t usually wake up before me.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Yuuri says.

Viktor’s eyes catch on the photo of Vicchan, and Yuuri’s stomach sinks.

“You had a poodle,” Viktor says. He reaches out, traces a line down the edge of the photo frame with one finger. “Just like Makkachin.”

“I told you I was a fan,” Yuuri says. “I’ve always been a dog person, so… when it came to picking a breed, the choice was easy.”

“Cute,” Viktor says, bumping his shoulder against Yuuri’s. “What was its name?”

“I’m not telling you,” Yuuri says. He’s being childish, and it comes through in his tone.

“Was it Makkachin?” Viktor asks slyly.

Yuuri sighs. “It was Viktor. We called him Vicchan for short.” When Viktor doesn’t respond, Yuuri adds, “He died the night before I competed in the Grand Prix Finals.”

“I’m sorry,” Viktor says.

Yuuri shoots him a sideways glance; he wonders if Viktor has put two and two together yet, jumping to the inevitable conclusion. That was certainly what Yuuri had told himself at the time. But maybe Viktor is perceptive enough to work his way past the excuses to the truth: that, depression or otherwise, Yuuri just wasn’t good enough.

“It’s almost two years ago,” Yuuri says.

There’s a momentary hesitation in the way Viktor’s hand closes over Yuuri’s, a heartbeat in between the touch of his palm to the back of Yuuri’s hand and the way he slides his fingers against Yuuri’s.

“Thank you for inviting me to Hasetsu,” Viktor says. “I love it here.”

They’re not looking at each other. Yuuri has no way of telling what Viktor’s thinking, what he’s feeling—for someone who can’t help but wear his heart on his sleeve, Viktor’s voice betrays very little.

“Thank you for coming,” Yuuri says. _I love having you here_ , he thinks.

He feels movement beside him, the feather-light whisper of Viktor’s breath against Yuuri’s ear as he says, “I’m going to get breakfast. Show me around the shops today, okay?”

And then Viktor’s gone, leaving Yuuri alone in the silence of the shrine. His hand burns with the sensation of a phantom touch, the presence of someone else, so near but moving further away with every second that passes. Yuuri presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, shut tight in case he starts crying. He doesn’t—there’s someone else, so nearby, keeping him grounded.

 

* * *

 

Their _moment_ in the shrine is all but forgotten by the middle of the day, as well as Viktor’s insistence that they go back to the Ice Castle. Yuuri takes Viktor through the centre of town and they go to all the touristy shops. Viktor blows an unreasonable amount of money on tacky souvenirs, the kind that Yuuri warns him are designed specifically to trick foreigners into parting with their cash, but Viktor doesn’t care, he loves it with a wholly unironic zeal. So Yuuri lets his walls down—he acts the tourist, even though everyone in Hasetsu knows exactly who he is, and he treats himself to a large lunch, buys a souvenir pin to match one of Viktor’s.

“This is great,” Viktor says. There is genuine enjoyment written all over his face. “Yuuri, what next?”

“I’ve shown you all the major sights,” Yuuri says. “There’s really not much to do around here.”

Viktor contemplates that for a few seconds. “Then, let’s go back to the beach!”

There’s a chill in the air but that doesn’t seem to bother Viktor. They stop by home first and pick up swimwear and towels, and then it’s straight back to the beach. Viktor runs ahead of Yuuri and throws himself into the first wave that comes ashore. His enthusiasm is catching. Yuuri finds that he no longer cares about embarrassing himself around Viktor. He throws his shirt off and his flip-flops too and he joins Viktor in the water.

“I’m not a strong swimmer,” Viktor says, “so you have to make sure I don’t get swept away.”

That surprises Yuuri. “Isn’t Saint Petersburg by the sea?”

Viktor shrugs. A great wave comes towards them, and he turns his back to it, jumping up as it hits him. “I never went to swimming lessons,” he says, after a while. “Too busy training.”

Yuuri mentally berates himself for asking such a stupid question, because of course, a prodigy like Viktor wouldn’t have had the time to do anything other than skate.

“What about you?” Viktor asks. “Swimming? Dancing? I don’t know that much about you, Yuuri. I’m in your hometown and I don’t even know what you studied at university.”

“Engineering,” Yuuri says. He steps out of the way of a low wave.

“What type? Viktor presses. “Robots? Bridges?”

“Um, computer science, actually,” Yuuri says. “I mean—it’s a useful sort of degree. I did a bit of web design too. I thought all of that would get me a job if figure skating fell through. It’s alright.”

Viktor clicks his tongue. “Only _alright_.”

To avoid confronting that particular line of thought, Yuuri kicks at the shallow water, sending a splash in Viktor’s direction. His toes catch in the sand, dragging his leg slowly, and he stumbles—Viktor catches his arm, setting them both upright.

“I’m jealous, you know,” Viktor says. “I never got to do any of that. Never learnt how to swim, never went to university, and… can I tell you a secret, Yuuri?”

“You’re going to tell me, whatever I say.”

“True.” Viktor smiles, biting his lip. “I’ve never even dated anyone. You’re my first boyfriend.”

Yuuri’s brain short-circuits. A wave twice his height could come crashing to shore and he wouldn’t budge, he’d just stand there and let it hit him.

“First of all,” he says, because Viktor is looking at him expectantly, “I’m not _really_ your boyfriend.”

“I guess,” Viktor says, shrugging.

“Second—was I your first kiss?”

The question is out of Yuuri’s mouth before he has time to acknowledge how much he’ll regret asking it. He doesn’t think that’s the case, from the way Viktor kissed—the time he remembers, not the first time. On the other hand, he won’t be able to rest without knowing.

Viktor puts Yuuri’s mind to rest easily. “No, you weren’t. But, um—”

Yuuri raises his eyebrows.

“It was a close thing,” Viktor says. “I can count the number of people I’ve been with on one hand. Five fingers. I’ve never—oh, wow, this is harder to say than I thought it would be.”

“I’ve only kissed four people,” Yuuri blurts. “So you’re winning.”

Viktor holds out his hand, palm to Yuuri in the international hand signal for _stop_. It’s a moment later that Yuuri realises what he means—five fingers. Tentative, Yuuri reaches out and pushes Viktor’s thumb against his palm.

“Number one,” Viktor says, “a boy at a summer camp. I never found out his name. He doesn’t skate competitively anymore.”

Yuuri lowers Viktor’s index finger next. This gets a different response—Viktor laughs, and if Yuuri thought that Viktor was capable of embarrassment he’d swear blind that it was a nervous laugh.

Viktor says, “Christophe Giacometti, European Championships, 2008. Now you owe me one.”

“Yuuko,” Yuuri says. “I—it was before she was going out with Takeshi. I was fourteen. She let me kiss her for practice. Just once, no tongue.”

He debates whether or not he should tell Viktor that Yuuko had said, “Pretend I’m Viktor! Then it’ll be easy!” He decides against it.

Viktor tells Yuuri about the other two—both one-night stands, no substance and nothing “too raunchy,” as Viktor puts it, which leads Yuuri to conclude that Viktor is only marginally more experienced than him, and he’s not sure how he feels about that. In turn, Yuuri tells Viktor about the boy in Detroit, someone in his college, who he’d kissed drunk at a party and never spoken to again. He tells Viktor about Phichit—more an experiment in intimacy than anything else, and one they hadn’t needed to continue.

They don’t need to articulate the last item on each of their lists. Instead, when Yuuri turns down the last of Viktor’s fingers, Viktor takes his hand and kisses him—part three of numbers four and five.

It’s not. It’s not anything real, Yuuri reminds himself. They’re not a couple. But kissing is nice and neither of them have done it anywhere near as much as they should’ve and there’s no-one else on the beach and it’s a breezy day and there’s nothing wrong with getting a little close to someone else for warmth. Yuuri is long past the point of panic, that this is _Viktor Nikiforov_ , the person he’d been picturing when he had his first kiss ten years ago. This is also Viktor who loves playing the tourist and who carries lamps with him when he travels because he loves being in the spotlight, Viktor who goes to bed early but who’ll stay up late for serious conversations, who flirts more readily than he breathes but kisses like he means it, and—

—and _that’s_ where Yuuri’s getting into dangerous territory, because _this isn’t real_. But despite the waves that hit them where they sit and the sand that gets into his hair when Viktor pushes him onto his back, it feels better than anything else in the world, better even than landing a quad flip, and if Yuuri has to be a little selfish to cling to this thing that they have, then he’ll do it. He’ll do it all.

 

* * *

 

“My theme for this season—” Yuuri begins. He clears his throat.

He forgot to turn off his phone. It vibrates persistently in his pocket with message after message, although he’s not sure who from.

“My theme is _History_. For almost two years, I’ve been retired from competitive figure skating. I’m coming back to my past—but at the same time I’m looking forward to the future, to what I can bring to my skating now that I’ve returned. With this theme, I want to emphasise that I’ve been shaped by my experiences, that my skating as you’ll see it this season is the culmination of a lifetime of training.”

It’s downright mortifying, as these things always are, but this one is significantly worse, since everyone here knows who Yuuri is. They have such high expectations of Japan’s returning ace. He can’t wait to let them down.

“And, um.” He looks away from the cameras with a sheepish smile. “I don’t think he’s watching, but I want to apologise to my friend Leo for not using his suggestion for my theme.”

There’s laughter from the audience; Yuuri’s never made so many people laugh before. He doesn’t know why he even made an attempt a joke. It’s uncomfortable now. He breathes deep, stepping back to his place on stage, away from the microphone. There’s applause. He was briefed on this. That doesn’t make it any easier.

After the press conference is over, he finds a corner and hides in it, checking the messages on his phone. There are eleven from Phichit—he always takes forever to get to the point, and unlike Yuuri, he never talks because he feels like he has nothing to say. He’s expressive because he likes it, because that’s just how he is. The eleven messages culminate in the question: _so anyway ur not-bf just emailed me to ask if he could stay a while longer in detroit is that ok with u?_

Of course it’s okay with Yuuri, and he tells Phichit as much. Viktor is Yuuri’s problem, and he was right to ask Phichit for permission to stay. He ought to know Yuuri would tell him no if he didn’t know in advance how Phichit felt, or didn’t have someone forcing him into a corner like this.

The other five messages are from Viktor:

_were watching the press conference live from the bar!_

_i forgot i dont speak japanese_

_no one is translating hel p me yuuri_

_yuuri_

_i hate your tie_

Yuuri can’t help but laugh to himself. He tugs at his tie, loosening its hold on his neck, his hold on propriety. It’s a second later that he registers he’s not alone. This corridor is long and quiet and at the other end there’s a presence that’s live with energy.

When he looks up, Minami looks away.

Perhaps Yuuri should feel ashamed that he doesn’t remember what Minami’s theme was. He wasn’t paying enough attention, too busy staving off an anxiety attack by focusing on his phone vibrating in his pocket and the ticking of the clock at the far end of the room, the shadow cast by the roaming second hand.

He’s saved from having to make conversation by Minami’s gradual approach. He comes to a stop in front of Yuuri, fists balled by his sides.

“We’ve both been assigned to NHK,” Minami squeaks. “In November—I’m going to compete against you with all I have.”

“I look forward to it,” Yuuri says.

“That’s all?” Minami asks indignantly. “Aren’t you going to tell me you’ll beat me to reclaim your rightful place as Japan’s number one male figure skater? Tell me you’re going to work hard to beat me, Yuuri!”

“I’m already working hard,” Yuuri says, “and I’m sure you are too. I’m not—there’s no ‘rightful’ anything. We’ll both do our best.”

Yuuri wonders if that’ll disappoint Minami, and maybe it does for a second, but he picks himself up admirably, a determined grin plastered across his face. “You’re right!”

He doesn’t say anything else, just stares at Yuuri for a few seconds, face flushed and eyes wide, before rushing off. Yuuri wonders if this is what he would’ve been like around Viktor if they hadn’t met the way they did. He’s shy, not stupid—a part of him knows he is to Minami what Viktor was to him. He wonders if Minami has posters of him. He wonders if there _are_ posters of him.

Before he can think too hard about that, his phone rings.

“Yuuri, your _tie_!” Viktor wails. “It’s criminal! You should know that you’re dating a _model_ , Yuuri—or had you forgotten? A model’s boyfriend cannot be seen in public in such an ugly tie.”

“It’s just plain blue,” Yuuri says.

Blue has always been his favourite colour, not out of any great love for the way it makes him feel, but out of security. It reminds him of water, of the beach and the onsen. His first coach told him he looked good in blue, and he had never been able to work up the courage to ask anyone for a second opinion. So it was blue.

Yuuri wonders what Viktor would do if he knew he was getting stale. Something that would surprise people.

“We’ll burn it,” Viktor says decisively. “A ceremonial farewell to a fashion disaster.”

“Okay,” Yuuri says. He surprises _himself_. “But you have to get me one of your fancy floral ties. Spare no expense.”

“Anything for you,” Viktor says, and his tone is light, but Yuuri can’t help the way his heart skips a beat.

“By the way, I got a message from Phichit that you want to stay in Detroit for a while longer,” Yuuri says.

“Oh, yes!” Viktor says. “I guess I should’ve known he’d tell you. You don’t mind, do you?”

Yuuri doesn’t dignify that with a response. “Viktor, if you’re getting me a new tie, you should get me a whole new suit. And new costumes for the Grand Prix season.”

It’s probably wrong of him to take advantage of this. It _feels_ wrong. It feels like something that might embarrass Yuuri, in another life. The Yuuri who was still working in his family’s inn, the Yuuri shut away in a hole-in-the-wall bedroom in Detroit. But this is the Yuuri living his dreams.

“What about those costumes you wore at the Championship?” Viktor asks. “They were nice. Blue suits you.”

 _That’s exactly the problem_ , Yuuri thinks.

“My tie is blue,” he says. “Anyway, they’re old. I should’ve commissioned new outfits, but—”

His breath catches at the back of his throat. It was so easy to go along with the joke he was setting up, but now it’s fallen flat.

“—I don’t know. I guess I got lazy.”

There’s a rush of breath from the other end of the line, and for a terrifying second Yuuri thinks Viktor is gearing up to give him a lecture, about presentation, fashion, comebacks, a lecture Yuuri well and truly deserves. He doesn’t. Viktor says, “Okay. I’ll talk to my old designer. Do you have any ideas?”

“A couple,” Yuuri says.

“Well, you studied design, after all,” Viktor says happily. “You can draw them for me when you get back to Hasetsu.”

“Web design,” Yuuri says, “not fashion design.”

“Okay, web design,” Viktor says. “Draw your ideas anyway.”

When Viktor says it, Yuuri almost believes it might be possible. That shouldn’t surprise him—he’s felt that way ever since he first saw Viktor’s skating. There’s a different aspect to it, now, the feeling made tangible. This was always going to be a comeback—no, a second debut—and it was always going to be hard to make it back to where he was two years ago.

 _History_ , huh? It’s funny how these things come back around.

Yuuri presses his phone against his ear and smiles to the empty corridor. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it wouldn't be a fake dating fic without all the totally platonic kissing, right? on another note, i'm utterly overwhelmed by all your comments and kudos and now, 100 bookmarks. this chapter marks the end of what i'm considering "part 1 of 3" in terms of the plot, but who knows what could happen. thanks so much for sticking with this fic :')


	9. Chapter 9

Detroit feels much bigger after being back in Hasetsu. Yuuri is no longer anchored by his hometown, his family, and within the restrictions of his training timetable he comes and goes as he pleases. Viktor follows him to training sometimes, no longer an oddity—“There’s Viktor again,” Yuuri hears someone say, and it cheers him up for a bit before he remembers that this, with Viktor, is only temporary.

The thought settles in his chest with a dull ache: one day, he and Viktor will put an end to their fake relationship. Viktor will move on. Yuuri is trying not to think about it. Instead, he focuses on the moments he’s living, making the most of having Viktor around.

Viktor moves into Yuuri’s bedroom. They barely fit on the tiny single bed, but Viktor doesn’t seem to mind. At night, as the weather gets steadily colder, they lie on their sides, backs to each other and blankets ending up twisted between them. It’s not so bad, having someone so close by all the time.

During the day Yuuri abandons his desk and sits with his back to the headboard, Viktor looped around his legs like a dog, his head in Yuuri’s lap. Yuuri rests his new sketchbook—the cheapest one he could find—on Viktor’s shoulder and draws up his ideas for costumes. For _Volkslied_ , one of Mendelssohn’s _Liede ohne Worte_ , something traditional, shades of green and brown, some texture but no sparkle. For _La Campanella_ , Yuuri develops an outrageous vision of himself wreathed in glimmering gold from his neck to his ankles. It’s a declaration of war, a bold announcement that the gold medal will be his.

Viktor’s contribution is to replace half the gold with fine white mesh. “Your short programme outfit is so _tame_ ,” he says. “Make the free skate sexier.”

“Sure, because there’s nothing as sexy as Liszt,” Yuuri says, rolling his eyes.

“I was thinking of the quad flip,” Viktor says. “Also. There’s nothing wrong with showing a little skin.”

As if to prove his point, he extends one long arm down to Yuuri’s feet and rolls up the leg of his track pants. Yuuri always cuffs his trousers, so Viktor is not proving much by showing Yuuri his own ankle, but Yuuri supposes it’s the thought that counts.

Yuuri flips to a new page and makes some quick marks. He holds the sketchbook in front of Viktor’s face. “How’s this?”

It’s too revealing. The gold curls around his legs and one arm like vines, and the other arm is entirely mesh. Looking at his legs from behind and at a distance, the bottom half of the costume could have Yuuri mistaken for Kylie in _Spinning Around_. There’s too much leg. Yuuri is hoping Viktor will realise it’s a joke and concede for the tame version.

Viktor takes one look at it and says, “Wow! Perfect!”

Yuuri’s ensuing yelp is so loud that Phichit comes in from his room to see what all the fuss is about. Phichit is on a roll, continuing his streak of being a very bad friend indeed and taking Viktor’s side on things like what to have for dinner, where to store the suitcases, Viktor sleeping in Yuuri’s bed. Phichit _loves_ the costume.

“Bright and shining, just like a ringing bell,” he says. “Also, it’s a little bit Kylie around the bum. I like that.”

“I changed my mind,” Yuuri says. “I’m retiring again.”

Viktor snatches the sketchbook from Yuuri. He sits upright and retrieves his phone from his back pocket, flipping through all of Yuuri’s scribbles and taking photos.

“For my designer,” Viktor explains.

That doesn’t do anything to reassure Yuuri.

Later, Phichit tells him in a whisper that the way he and Viktor were sitting, they could be mistaken for a real couple, and is Yuuri absolutely certain they’re not a real couple? Yuuri shoots a glance across from the kitchen to where Viktor is lounging on the couch, scrolling through something on his phone. It's not a particularly long couch, and with his head on the armrest at one end Viktor’s feet dangle off the other end. All Yuuri can see from this angle is a pair of mismatched socks, one of which is Yuuri’s.

“We’re not,” Yuuri says quietly. “But I wouldn’t mind if we were.”

Viktor is humming to himself, and he isn’t very perceptive about what’s going on around him at the best of times. There’s no way he would have heard Yuuri’s admission. Yuuri tenses anyway.

Phichit puts his hand on Yuuri’s shoulder. “So what are you waiting for?”

“It’s not that easy,” Yuuri says.

He might have said something else, but at that moment Viktor pokes his head up over the back of the couch.

“Hey, Yuuri? My designer says their studio will have your costumes ready in time for Skate America! Isn’t that great?”

Yuuri sighs. “Yeah, fantastic…”

He's beginning to wish he had stuck with safe blue. Taking risks has never ended well for him.

“One more thing,” Viktor says. “I’m doing a photoshoot in LA a week after Skate America, do you want to be my plus-one?”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “For the photoshoot?”

“For everything,” Viktor says. Shrugging, he adds, “Maybe not for the photoshoot itself, but…”

“I’m not great in front of cameras, anyway,” Yuuri says. He lets Phichit include him in the occasional selfie and that’s about it. Just thinking about modelling is daunting. Yuuri wonders what it’ll be like, being around Viktor when he’s working. He might suddenly put on that one face that all models have, all surly nonchalance and weaponised cheekbones, and Yuuri’s not sure he likes the idea of that.

“If Celestino lets you miss training, that is,” Phichit says, elbowing Yuuri in between drying off dishes.

Yuuri’s heart nearly jumps out of his chest. “Oh, no, I didn’t think, I didn’t—”

Somewhere in the background, while Yuuri was freaking out, Viktor must have stood up—all of a sudden he’s standing in front of Yuuri and he puts a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder, almost like consolation.

“Don’t worry, Yuuri. I know a rink in LA, somewhere I trained over summer once. You can use it while we’re there. I’ll be your coach!”

After all this, Yuuri had rather hoped Viktor had got the message. “You’re not going to be my coach, not even for a week. Celestino wouldn’t be happy.”

“I don’t care what he thinks,” Viktor says. “Just don’t tell him.”

Viktor rubs his knuckles against Yuuri’s shoulder in a gentle massage, and Yuuri melts under Viktor’s touch. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. We’ll go to Los Angeles.”

“It was never a question whether or not _I’d_ go,” Viktor says, and he keeps rambling, wandering back to the sofa with a spring in his step that wasn’t there before.

Yuuri watches him go and feels a little lighter than before—something about Viktor’s “anything is possible” attitude makes it impossible to disagree with him. Beside Yuuri, Phichit nudges him in the arm and whispers, “Definitely a couple,” and Yuuri thinks he could get used to this.

So long as he doesn’t get _too_ used to it.

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, Phichit has a lot of opinions about Yuuri and Viktor’s relationship. “I think you can do better than convincingly fake,” he tells Yuuri over coffee at their old campus haunt. “You could be a real couple.”

“Not this again,” Yuuri says, because it’s not the first time he’s heard these exact words, and it’s starting to get a little trying.

“Yes this again,” Phichit says, “and this time you’re actually going to listen to me. Do you want to seduce him or not?”

He’s all business. Yuuri slumps down lower in his seat. “I wish you wouldn’t use that word.”

“What, _seduce_?”

Yuuri clarifies with a nod.

“I’ve got a few other words and phrases.” Phichit clears his throat. “Capture his heart, get into his pants, titillate him…”

“Thank you, that’s enough,” Yuuri groans.

“You know, I think you need to turn it up a notch,” Phichit says. “A little less _Diet Mountain Dew_ , a little more _Cola_. I mean, you’re literally sleeping in the same bed every night now. The fact that you aren’t banging is literally baffling to me.”

“This is _literally_ the worst conversation we’ve ever had,” Yuuri says.

Phichit folds one arm across the table, lazily stirring a third sachet of sugar into his coffee. “I should clarify: do you _want_ to bang him?”

“So crude,” Yuuri says, which means _yes_ , and they both know it.

It’s more complicated than just seduction. The problem is that Yuuri went and got his feelings involved, which has never ended well for him, ever. Yuuri knows that Phichit is talking about sex—he knows all about Yuuri and his stupid feelings—but it’s not that simple in Yuuri’s mind. He can’t separate the two things, his crush, fourteen years old and still going strong, and his physical attraction to Viktor, which has gotten much, much worse in the last two months. Because it’s somewhere in the middle. The crush was never about Viktor as a person; it was always Viktor as a skater. Now it’s the opposite.

Phichit waves his teaspoon in front of Yuuri’s face. “It’s not that hard, you know. To initiate it.”

“What would you have me do, pose on the bed in my _La Campanella_ costume and wait for him to come home?” Yuuri lets out a frustrated breath. “He’s not interested, Phichit.”

“Oh, he’s interested alright,” Phichit says. “Actually that’s not such a bad idea—when’s your costume getting in, anyway?”

“Next week,” Yuuri says. “I’ve seen photos of the work in progress. It’s way too revealing. I can’t believe I let myself be talked into it.”

“You designed it,” Phichit points out.

“I was with Viktor at the time,” Yuuri says. “I can’t think straight around him.” Like that’s any excuse.

“Which brings my nicely back to my main point,” Phichit says. He pauses, lets his teaspoon drop down to the saucer with a clatter. “Getting you laid.”

It’s unnecessarily dramatic and Phichit has a positively wicked grin on his face and he very nearly catches Yuuri with his zeal. But Yuuri is made of stronger stuff than that, and he schools his expression into a suitably disapproving frown.

“Let’s say he’s interested, for argument’s sake,” Yuuri says. “What makes you think I could ever be enough to—to seduce him? I’m about as attractive as this teaspoon.”

He picks up the teaspoon and holds it out towards Phichit. It’s brandless and standard and stained with another patron’s coffee, a relic of the cafe’s superannuated dishwasher that tends to leave things slightly removed from cleanliness. The teaspoon is dull and unremarkable. Yuuri has never related more strongly to an inanimate object.

“Okay, let’s say you’re about as attractive as this teaspoon, for argument’s sake,” Phichit says. He takes the teaspoon from Yuuri and puts it flat on the table in front of him. “This is how you see yourself.”

Phichit rips open a fourth sachet of sugar and pours it into the teaspoon. It’s raw brown sugar and it spills over quickly, leaving a ring of grains around the spoon.

“This is how other people see you.”

“I don’t get it,” Yuuri says.

“Metaphors, Yuuri,” Phichit says. “They always backfire. You think you’re boring like a teaspoon, but when other people look at you they see the sugar.”

“What’s the sugar a metaphor for?” Yuuri asks.

Phichit raises his eyebrows.

“Never mind,” Yuuri says.

“I don’t think any of us can ever truly know how we look to the world,” Phichit says, “so you just have to take my word for it.”

That’s well and good, but Phichit’s word isn’t Viktor’s word, and at the end of the day it’s his opinion Yuuri cares about. Yuuri is still unsure what exactly it is he wants that opinion to be. What he wants for himself.

“Or—” Phichit shrugs, tipping the teaspoon full of sugar into his coffee, “—take it slow. I’m sure you’ll get there eventually.”

And that sounds like a much better option.

 

* * *

 

Skate America sneaks up on Yuuri. His costumes arrive, and he does not try them on. He stops looking for jobs and skates whenever he can, and sometimes when he can’t. A bad cold nearly puts him out of action for a week but he keeps going, skates with tissues stuffed in his waistband, falls or one-hands out of all his jumps, keeps going, keeps going.

Viktor comes down with the same cold. People make jokes about couples who share everything long after they’ve both recovered.

They start making plans. Phichit is assigned to the Cup of China and Trophée Éric Bompard, but because it’s close by he’s coming to Skate America as a spectator. They book seats on a Greyhound to Chicago and half an hour later Viktor decides he wants to travel coach too—something he’s never done before; he views it as a great novelty, not the limited legroom nightmare it’ll be for someone his height. So they book a third seat.

Usually, Yuuri gets nervous the night before a big trip. He gets the kind of nervous that leaves him pacing up and down the apartment and, if he manages to sleep, dreaming about being late and missing his coach. He should feel those same nerves now. His coach leaves nine sharp tomorrow. Skate America is the day after. The nerves—the nerves are absent.

Yuuri is lying on his back with his eyes firmly affixed skywards. The other options are looking to his right, where Viktor’s hand is resting on his bed, straight ahead, where Viktor’s arm is splayed across his chest, or to his left, where Viktor is lying, curled around him.

He needs to distract himself, so he asks, “Have you been to any skating events since you retired?”

Viktor hums. “Not for very long. I went to last year’s Rostelecom Cup. It was the last event of the season, and part two of Yuri Plistetsky’s senior debut season—he wanted me to choreograph something for him, and I acted like I’d forgotten, but to be honest, I was out of inspiration.”

That manages to surprise Yuuri. It’s almost like Yuri Plisetsky is a sore spot for Viktor, which would make sense, given that Plisetsky placed above him at both the Grand Prix Finals and Russian Nationals. Yuuri can’t imagine why Plisetsky would want choreography from Viktor when he clearly had the tools to beat him in his own arsenal.

“Before the series started, I toyed with giving him a short version of my free skate,” Viktor continues, unprompted. “He was too angry for _Agape_ , though. Couldn’t have pulled it off.”

“ _Agape_ was beautiful,” Yuuri says. He tries to imagine Plisetsky skating it in the same shimmering purple outfit that Viktor wore, and comes up short.

“I don’t think I pulled it off either,” Viktor says, very quietly.

Yuuri thinks about Phichit’s insistence that he turn up the charm. “Well,” he says, “you certainly pulled off _Eros_.”

Viktor shakes out of his impending mood almost immediately. He sits up and perches over Yuuri—looking at the ceiling is no longer a viable option.

“You think so? Do you think I’m sexy, Yuuri?”

“There’s a—well, a public consensus,” Yuuri stammers. “You’re Viktor Nikiforov.”

“What does that mean to you?” Viktor asks.

It’s a loaded question. Apparently Viktor is still feeling introspective after all. And Yuuri doesn’t know how to answer. Of course, there’s the truth. The truth is that Viktor means everything to Yuuri. There’s the other truth, that Viktor is an idol to him, a hero, a friend, a—something, whatever this is.

Yuuri doesn’t say any of that. “What does it mean to _you_?”

Viktor is silent, looking down at him curiously.

“Um, I shouldn’t have said that, sorry, I only meant—”

“It means a lot of things to me,” Viktor says. “Let’s save that for some other time. For now, we should sleep.”

Viktor avoids confrontation like Yuuri does, but he’s not so obvious about it. Yuuri wonders when he started picking up on Viktor’s tells. Maybe one day they’ll progress to talking about it.

“Okay,” Yuuri says. “Sorry.”

The bed drops and Yuuri feels heavier as Viktor lies back down beside him. His night-before nerves are starting to set in, and it’s almost reassuring to know that everything is just as it’s always been. The only difference is the extra presence in Yuuri’s life.

 _Oh, no_ , Yuuri thinks, _I’m getting used to it_.

“You’re nervous,” Viktor says, very softly. His voice is lost in the dark of the room and he’s just barely illuminated by a sliver of light coming in through the top of the curtains.

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. Viktor is picking up on his tells too.

“Anything I can do?” Viktor asks. “A massage? A kiss?”

If Yuuri was dozing before, he’s wide awake now. Seduction—is that what this is? Viktor had asked Yuuri what he meant to him; now, Yuuri is burning to ask what _he_ means to Viktor.

They’re not there yet.

“A kiss,” Yuuri says. He turns slowly onto his side so that he’s facing Viktor, inviting.

“A kiss, then,” Viktor says, and cups Yuuri’s face in his hand.

For a few heart-stopping seconds Yuuri thinks it isn’t going to happen. They haven’t kissed like they did in Hasetsu since they were in Hastesu; it’s been kisses to the cheek, the side of the head, and once, the hand. All initiated by Viktor. Something clicks, then—it’s not going to happen if Yuuri doesn’t make it happen.

He presses his lips to Viktor’s, just lightly. Testing the waters. He doesn’t know what he expected, but Viktor lets him lead and lets him willingly, leaning into the kiss and parting his lips.

Maybe Viktor, who has kissed five people in his whole life and not much more, wants to hold onto this sensation as much as Yuuri does. Maybe Viktor is just curious. Yuuri couldn’t fault him for that. Maybe there’s something else going on, something that Yuuri couldn’t even begin to understand. Maybe—and Yuuri hopes, with the faintest of hopes—maybe Viktor is seeing the sugar, and not the teaspoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew. sorry for the wait. the next chapter is a big one... skate america. with any luck i'll have sketches of yuuri's costumes to link in the notes. i'll try not to take too long with it but my internet access is patchy at the moment so don't get too excited.
> 
> if you didn't get the references to songs, here are some youtube links and explanations: [spinning around](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekpM8eD3LM4) is a classic kylie minogue track with an iconic pair of gold hotpants in the video clip. you should've seen my face when i realised these characters were exactly the right ages to have grown up listening to kylie. [diet mountain dew](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I8T9XRMbeA) and [cola](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgqaX_0-zvk) are both lana del rey songs (as we have established, phichit is a fan) but fair warning, cola is super nsfw. (hence the, uh, yeah.)


	10. Chapter 10

Yuuri feels like he’s been hit by a bus, not just been travelling on one. The trip only takes a morning and a morning is all it takes to ruin a day. Yuuri’s mood is sour as he sits in the back of a taxi to the hotel, sandwiched between Viktor and Phichit, both irrepressibly bright. Viktor’s first coach experience left him as exuberant as a kid on a rollercoaster. His legs are bouncing up and down next to Yuuri’s; Yuuri wonders if he’d be just as excited to experience the other trappings of the lower classes, like early morning walks in the snow to the laundromat and living off instant noodles for a month.

And Phichit is no help—he takes great joy in getting Viktor to recount his favourite parts of the bus ride, over and again. By the time they get to the hotel Yuuri has gone from sour to snappy to sulky. He wishes he’d booked his own hotel room, but he has to keep up appearances. So it’s a twin room with Viktor and chatter all the way up the lift.

“Yuuri, are you nervous?” Viktor asks. “You look nervous.”

It’s then that Yuuri realises, actually, _Viktor_ is nervous.

They had strayed off track when they were talking about it last night, but this is Viktor’s first skating event in almost a year. It’s the sport he dedicated himself to for his entire adult life, and then some. It’s the career he was always doomed to leave—like they all are—and now he’s right in the thick of it. Of course he’d be nervous. Maybe now’s a good time for Yuuri to give Viktor some space, as well as giving himself a reprieve.

“Ah, yeah, I am a little nervous,” Yuuri says.

“No need,” Viktor says, punctuating it with a kiss to Yuuri’s head. “You’re going to take the competition by storm.”

“Given who the competition is…”

Viktor laughs it off, but Yuuri can tell he’s thinking seriously about it. There are some real contenders in Skate America. Yuuri knows he’s no match for any of them. All he can do is his best, and hope that’s enough. He knows it won’t be. But he will, anyway.

“I’m going to go for a wander,” Yuuri says into the silence. “You should relax.”

There’s a split-second before Viktor realises that Yuuri totally has his number, and he gives Yuuri a wobbly smile, shoulders slumping. “Ah, don’t worry about me.”

Yuuri shrugs. “You’re—”

_—my “boyfriend,” I’m supposed to worry about you, who else is going to take care of you?_

“I know,” Viktor says. He places a kiss just to the left of Yuuri’s mouth. “Go.”

When Yuuri nods, Viktor’s hair brushes against his face. Why had he wanted to be alone again? He could stay standing there forever.

He does go, though, determined to clear his head before they meet up with Phichit to get lunch. It should be downtime, the most calming part of Yuuri’s day. Apparently, bad days only get worse. Yuuri opens the hotel door and standing there, poised to knock, is Yuri Plisetsky.

“Oh,” Yuuri breathes, at the same time the other Yuri shouts, “You!”

They’ve met before. Two years ago, at the Grand Prix Final, from one side of a bathroom stall to the other, and a shouted accusation that rings in Yuuri’s ears to this day: _there’s only room for one Yuri in the Senior Division_.

Viktor’s voice back in the hotel room might as well be miles away when he says, “How did you find me, Yuri?”

“Asked at reception,” Plisetsky snaps. “What’s _he_ doing here?”

“Who, my boyfriend?” Viktor asks, deeply sarcastic. “You see, when two consenting adults love each other very much—”

“I’m competing,” Yuuri interrupts. He meets Plisetsky’s eyes and sees only rage. “Against you.”

Plisetsky’s scowl could wilt flowers. “I know who you are. I meant—ugh, never fucking mind. I’m here to talk to Viktor, not you.”

“That’s fine,” Yuuri says. “I was just leaving.”

He makes good on his word and scarpers to the lift before Plisetsky can say anything else. There’s shouting and then the sound of a door slamming shut. It occurs to Yuuri that the room is booked in his name, and there’s no way Yuri Plisetsky would’ve found it by asking for Viktor. There’s an implication in there somewhere. Yuuri can’t quite piece it together. He doesn’t have the time, anyway. Another distraction is waiting for him on the other side of the lift doors. When they slide open, there’s Christophe Giacometti standing right there, arms folded as he leans against a wall, and his eyes go curiously wide when he sees Yuuri.

It shouldn’t be a surprise—Yuuri has spoken with Christophe on several occasions, and he would call them friendly acquaintances. But all he can think of is how Christophe was Viktor’s second kiss, how there are just two people in this lift and what are the odds that both of them have kissed Viktor? And Yuuri is the one kissing Viktor now; would that make Christophe jealous? Should Yuuri say something?

It’s Christophe who breaks the ice. He opens his arms for a hug that is not returned.

“Yuuri. It’s been so long.”

“Christophe,” Yuuri squeaks. “Um, yeah, fancy… seeing you here…”

“I would’ve caught up with you one way or another,” Christophe says, waving a hand. “You’re a slippery one. I’ve been looking forward to facing off with you again.”

“It was hardly a face-off last time,” Yuuri says. He came a very resounding sixth, after all.

Christophe shrugs. “What have you been doing these last two years? Apart from Viktor, that is.”

Is Yuuri imagining it, or is there no ventilation in this lift? It feels five degrees hotter than it did before. He wrings his hands together. “Training, mostly,” he says.

“So where _is_ Viktor?” Christophe asks, like Yuuri hadn’t spoken at all.

“Still in our room,” Yuuri says. He does not miss the way Christophe’s eyebrows quirk up at that. Yuuri adds, “Yuri Plisetsky wanted to talk to him.”

“Right,” Christophe says, nodding to himself. Yuuri wonders what that means.

The lift gets to the ground floor and Christophe follows Yuuri into the lobby. It’s packed with skaters, queueing up to check in and socialising. Yuuri slips past and out onto the street; Christophe follows him there too.

Before he can stop himself, Yuuri asks, “Where are you going?”

“I’m not stalking you, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Christophe says. “I need coffee. Where are _you_ going?”

“Just for a walk,” Yuuri says.

Turns out they’re going in the same direction. The city streets are busy but their small-scale silence is awkward and Yuuri doesn’t know how to fill it. Christophe is much taller than Yuuri. He walks in confident strides. Yuuri, more alert than usual to how he holds himself, struggles to keep up.

“Should I say what everyone’s been dying to say?” Christophe stops at a pedestrian crossing and Yuuri pulls up beside him. “About you and Viktor.”

“What about us?”

“That it took you long enough,” Christophe says, almost shortly. He exhales. “God. Since the banquet that year we’ve all been wondering when you two would get together.”

Wait. What?

Yuuri opens his mouth to respond but nothing comes out. He covers it with a cough, but not well enough. Christophe is giving him a strange look. Yuuri clutches his chest.

“I didn’t talk to Viktor at the banquet,” he says at last. “He was my childhood idol. I was too shy.”

Now it’s Christophe’s mouth that’s hanging open. “Yuuri. I am _gobsmacked_. You don’t remember?”

“Is there,” Yuuri says slowly, “something I should be remembering?”

“You got trashed on champagne and started challenging people to dance-offs,” Christophe says. “Were you so drunk that you forgot?”

Yuuri shakes his head. That doesn’t sound like him at all. Well, he is a blackout drunk, and he knows from experience that champagne goes straight to his head. But not the dance-offs. Unless you count the breakdance battles he was dragged into back in his college dance society, and that one morning he woke up to discover he was banned from the biggest frat on campus because apparently he’d taught everyone’s girlfriends how to salsa and made at least seven enemies for life.

Okay. It sounds exactly like him.

“Unreal,” Christophe says. “Wait, come get coffee with me—I have photos. I might even have some videos.”

“Oh no,” Yuuri says.

“Oh yes,” Christophe says, his smile spreading into a wicked grin. “It was incredible, Yuuri. You’re a real dirty dancer. We pole-danced together, and you don’t even remember… I must admit, I’m a little hurt.”

“We pole-danced.” Yuuri feels hollow. “Did I—did I pole-dance for Viktor? Is that why everyone thought—”

Christophe rolls his eyes. “Pole-dancing was just about the only thing you _didn’t_ do with Viktor. He’s got no upper body strength, and I don’t think his old man thighs would’ve been up to the challenge—maybe you’ve got a couple other stories about his thighs, hmm?”

“What _did_ we do?” Yuuri asks—partly because the only story he has about Viktor’s thighs is that they give off so much heat at night that it’s like sleeping under an electric blanket, partly because he desperately needs to know how far things went.

“For every dance-off you had with someone else, you spent as much time dancing with Viktor,” Christophe says. “You were together most of the night. I’m surprised he never thought to talk about it. Would’ve saved me the trouble.”

Yuuri can only nod jerkily. It would’ve saved him a lot of trouble too.

“The moment you stepped onto the dancefloor he couldn’t take his eyes off you,” Christophe continues. “Let’s see, there was the salsa, the flamenco, a bit of bump-and-grind… oh, you asked him that if you won a dance-off against him, would he be your coach? I don’t remember what he said to that, but you _definitely_ beat him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Back in the hotel in Fukuoka, Celestino had berated Viktor for trying to be Yuuri’s coach. Celestino said that Yuuri had asked, and Yuuri hadn’t believed it at the time, but now it’s starting to make sense. Viktor had clearly remembered that part, even though Yuuri didn’t. So why did Viktor act like he didn’t remember Yuuri when they bumped into each other back at the gala dinner in New York?

Unless.

Christophe finds a coffee shop to his satisfaction—“It doesn’t really matter. All American coffee is piss,”—and once he’s ordered they sit at a corner table and Christophe gets out his phone.

Yuuri is presented with enough pictorial evidence to banish every trace of doubt from his mind. There he is drinking straight from an expensive-looking bottle, taking off his shirt, wearing his tie like a headband. Breakdancing with Yuri Plisetsky, of all people—just one of many dance-offs, Christophe assures him. There are photos of the pole-dancing too, and the less said about that the better. Yuuri is grateful these pictures never made it to Instagram. Probably because Phichit wasn’t there.

The photos of Yuuri and Viktor, though… those are something else. Yuuri has to acknowledge that there’s a spark in the way they’re looking at each other, even though he doesn’t remember a minute of it. The two of them are about as close as two people can get without locking lips, and Viktor is _smiling_ , really beaming, a fond expression that Yuuri has only seen on his face a handful of times in the last two months. And there it is, two years ago.

After Christophe’s second espresso—“Still piss, I’m sad to report,”—Yuuri’s seen enough to piece together a timeline. Viktor must remember the way Yuuri danced with Yuri Plisetsky, and Yuuri asking him to be his coach. But after that? There’s nothing to say that Viktor remembers any of what transpired between them. In fact, Yuuri is certain that Viktor’s memory is as blank as his own.

In New York, Viktor hadn’t known his name. He’d followed Yuuri on Instagram the day before and he hadn’t even known his name. There wasn’t any recognition in his eyes. Viktor forgot too.

And what a thing to forget.

 

* * *

 

The short programme looms large and Yuuri feels very, very small. He’s rinkside with Celestino and it’s Christophe skating before him, practically feeling himself up on the ice, but skating a beautiful programme nonetheless. It’s enough to make any competitor nervous. For a competitor like Yuuri—useless and anxiety-prone—it’s enough to convince him to retire on the spot, call a press conference, announce his impending hermitude in a mountainside cave, thanks for everything, bye.

He fiddles with the hemline of his costume’s half-skirt under his Team Japan hoodie. His phone is in Celestino’s pocket, to keep Yuuri from distracting himself. What Celestino doesn’t know is that Yuuri can distract himself plenty well without his phone. His thoughts are more than enough, and they keep circling back around to coffee with Christophe that morning. To the banquet, two years ago. To _Viktor_.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Celestino says, clamping a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder. “You have a very polished short programme. Tomorrow you’re going to land a quad flip. Imagine the looks on their faces, hmm?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says shakily.

His short programme had suffered for all the effort he’d put into the quad flip, but now it’s at a level he can be proud of. The new costume helps. It makes it feel like a rehash and more like the debut that it isn’t, not really. The half-skirt starts short at the front and loops around to hang long in the back, and it reminds Yuuri of the kinds of costumes Viktor wore in competition when he was younger.

Viktor—is somewhere in the stalls with a pair of binoculars that he’d bought for the opera when he was in New York. That’s the kind of thing Yuuri can imagine Viktor doing. Going to the opera. Living a conspicuous, cultured life. Not packed into the stalls at an ice rink.

He’s here for Yuuri.

That should be enough to give Yuuri the strength to go out onto the ice, skate a perfect programme, land all his jumps, perform his step sequences with flair.

It is not.

Celestino tells Yuuri not to worry, he’ll make it up tomorrow. That’s what Yuuri did at the regional championship, after all. He can do it again. Except tomorrow is one day closer to the Grand Prix Final and Yuuri has lost his shot at that for good.

He hasn’t lost his shot, Celestino tells him. If he comes anywhere in the top four tomorrow he still has a fighting chance. This is only the first event of the series. Who knows what could happen? Except after tomorrow, Yuuri won’t be skating again until the last event of the series, and by then the finalists could have already been decided.

On the way back to his hotel room, studiously avoiding any company, all Yuuri can think about is the banquet. Celestino’s words have done little to reassure him. He wonders what Viktor would’ve said, if he’d been Yuuri’s coach like Yuuri had asked. Probably he would’ve lectured Yuuri, the same way Yuri Plisetsky’s coach did when he stepped off the ice after landing all but one of his jumps.

Yuuri doesn’t have to wonder for long. Viktor’s already in the room, lounging on the well-made bed they’d both ignored last night.

“Hey,” Yuuri says. His voice breaks.

Viktor leaps to his feet and jumps onto Yuuri, pulls him into the kind of hug Yuuri will still be feeling tomorrow morning. “It’s going to be okay,” Viktor says, very gently.

“Don’t tell me that,” Yuuri says. He draws back and holds Viktor at arm’s length. “You were watching. Talk me through my mistakes.”

“Maybe that’s not the best idea right now,” Viktor says.

Yuuri scowls. “Don’t tell me that either. I’m not asking you—Viktor, you have to talk me through my mistakes.”

“I’ll order us a bottle of wine,” Viktor says.

“Ah, no—” Yuuri’s heart stutters over the last two times he’s been drunk with Viktor. “I’d rather do this sober.”

They sit on the bed—the one they’ve been sleeping on—and Viktor runs through Yuuri’s programme from beginning to end. He’s clinical in his dissection and Yuuri appreciates that. Viktor takes Yuuri’s hand and turns it over so his palm faces upwards. Yuuri’s palm is the ice and Viktor walks two fingers across it to demonstrate the problems with Yuuri’s jumps. It’s childish with an undercurrent of seriousness—the most _Viktor_ thing.

Yuuri wonders if he’s taking advantage of this. Viktor _forgot_ , and now Yuuri knows something Viktor doesn’t and that puts him in a position of dubious power. He lets Viktor fumble their fingers together into clumsily held hands, lets Viktor lean forward and brush his nose against Yuuri’s, laughing, the same look on his face as in the photos from the banquet. Yuuri takes advantage, kissing Viktor, because he knows that Viktor will kiss back, because that’s something they do now.

Maybe it would’ve been something they did two years ago, but Yuuri forgot too, and they both missed their chance. It would’ve been something different if Yuuri had stayed in competition. He and Viktor could’ve shared a hotel room one night and skated against each other the next. Instead it’s _this_ , and there’s an expiry date on it.

“Let’s stay in tonight,” Viktor says. “We’ll get room service.”

 _Selfish_ , Yuuri thinks.

“Of course,” he says.

 

* * *

 

After the first day of Skate America, the headlines focus on Yuri Plisetsky—second place—throwing a large, ungainly plush kitten at Jean-Jacques Leroy—first place—and hitting him square in the shoulder. There are magnanimous quotes from Leroy saying that he holds no grudge against Plisetsky, and by the way, has everyone seen his wedding ring? There is only one article with a quote from Plisetsky: “I’m not sorry.” There is an article about the debut of Christophe Giacometti’s latest porny short programme, complete with grainy 480p screenshots that claim to be evidence he was sporting a boner for the entire skate. There’s even a Viktor-spotting article which goes into great depth on the outfit he was wearing and how he must be feeling watching the skating but not as a competitor.

There is nothing about the fact that Yuuri Katsuki is in last place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new cryptid: christophe giacometti's boner
> 
> the episode 10/chapter 10 dichotomy is real. but of course it wouldn't be a canon divergence au without a bit of a twist. the ride is getting bumpy, folks.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note the "rating may change" tag. that should be happening fairly soon. this chapter contains sexual references.

The first time Yuuri tries on the costume for his free skate is on the morning of the performance. Viktor is in the shower and while Yuuri is alone he feels like he should check—just in case it’s a disaster and it doesn’t fit and he has to wear the same costume he wore yesterday and make an even bigger fool of himself than he already has.

It does fit. It fits really well. It fits a little _too_ well.

Yuuri doesn’t notice when the shower shuts off, and Viktor steps out in nothing but a towel. “Wow, Yuuri,” Viktor says, “your ass looks _incredible_.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Yuuri says. He keeps his eyes on his reflection. “It’s embarrassing.”

The mirror image shifts as Viktor comes up beside Yuuri and wraps an arm around his waist. “You’re golden. Like a good luck charm.”

He drags a finger along Yuuri’s back—a panel of the mesh, not the gold—and Yuuri is certain he shivers.

“It’s not likely you’ll get the gold today,” Viktor says, “but you can easily get fourth place, maybe even bronze. Don’t give up on that. Not yet, not ever.”

Yuuri nods. He relents and lets Viktor pull him closer; and he’s proud of himself that he doesn’t even flinch when Viktor presses a kiss to the side of his head. He knows Viktor is only doing it out of habit, because proximity is how they reassure each other now, but that doesn’t stop Yuuri from imagining, just for the briefest moment, that this really is who they are.

This is pushing it. Yuuri tilts his head, inviting, and Viktor takes the bait and kisses him. All of a sudden Yuuri’s costume feels too tight, or maybe he’s just breathless. He only turns his head an inch and Viktor takes the whole mile, and, oh, they’re very close, and neither of them are wearing much at all, and this is the closest Yuuri has ever been to— _that_. He shivers. Viktor must feel it, because he pulls Yuuri closer with his other arm, and—

“We should—” Yuuri splutters, “we shouldn’t.”

“You’re right.” Viktor pulls back before they can get any closer. “I know the rule! No sex before competitions!”

 _Sex_ is such a big concept, a short word that hangs heavy between them. On the other side of short-circuiting, Yuuri processes it slowly and puts up a wall so high not even Viktor will be able to climb it. He says, “Not that you would know.”

Viktor’s eyes go impossibly wide.

“I didn’t mean that,” Yuuri says, horrified at himself.

Viktor surprises Yuuri—he smirks, his eyes narrowing. “Well, you wouldn’t know either, hmm?”

“N-no, of course not,” Yuuri says.

Now he’ll have to explain to Viktor that he didn’t mean _before competitions_ , he meant in general, that sex should not be a thing they’re contemplating at all, given they’re not actually in a relationship. He doesn’t want to explain any of that. He wants to put his tracksuit on over his costume and get out there and skate and stop thinking about the fact that Viktor’s talking about sex while wearing nothing but a towel.

“Afterwards, then,” Viktor says, so flippantly, like someone might suggest getting a bite to eat or a cup of coffee.

And then Viktor turns his back to Yuuri and lets the towel slip from his waist, bending down to rummage for clothes in his suitcase. Yuuri wants to look away. Honest. But this is a dream he had when he was about sixteen and wouldn’t it be a little rude if he were to turn away? They’ve shared rooms so many times before; Viktor has never done anything like this.

Thankfully, he thinks to check—“Oh, is this alright?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. He must sound like he’s drowning. “Of course.”

Viktor slumps a little, still facing away from Yuuri, but perks up quickly. “Great! In that case, I’ll do it more often! Clothes are so cumbersome, don’t you think?”

“Look at me,” Yuuri says, gesturing to his costume. “I’m barely wearing more than you.”

“Dressed like a winner,” Viktor says. He turns around for the express purpose of winking at Yuuri. “How about I put on some clothes and we head to the rink?”

Yuuri watches absently as Viktor gets dressed. It’s confusing, the pattern they’re settling into—what does it mean that they operate at such a high level of intimacy but officially label it _fake_? What would happen if Yuuri suggested that they call it something else? He doesn’t think he’d have the courage for that. And anyway, this is not the right time for focusing on anything other than skating.

He’ll think about it later.

 

* * *

 

The ice feels different today. Yuuri is still uncertain and every time his mind strays to Viktor things get a little messy, but he has something grounding him. He can’t put a name to it, so he doesn’t try to. He focuses on the ice. He feels exposed in his costume and he knows the other skaters are staring during warm-up; they don’t come close to him so Yuuri won’t let them get to him. He stays on when warm-up ends—last place goes first.

There’s cheering. Of course there’s cheering. The crowd knows that Yuuri Katsuki, last place, has a quad flip in his programme, and they won’t be happy if he fucks it up.

It’s a close thing—Yuuri steps out of the jump but the rotations are all there and he doesn’t lose any of his momentum. He hardly feels it happen and once it’s over he thinks, _Oh, that was a quad flip_. There’s another combination after the quad flip and then another jump and Yuuri barely remembers those either. The skate ends and—that’s it.

For someone so good at keeping his emotions in check, Celestino is exuberant. “Yuuri, Yuuri! Unbe _liev_ able! Even that quad flip! So much better, Yuuri, so much better.”

Yuuri doesn’t know what to say. He never knows what to say to praise. “Thank you,” he tries.

“It was all you,” Celestino says.

“I couldn’t have done it without your coaching,” Yuuri says. A weird voice at the back of his mind asks, _Couldn’t you?_

Celestino claps an arm around his shoulder, and Yuuri lets it slide. His leg starts to shake. The scores always come up on the screen, and Yuuri’s eyesight isn’t good enough for that. He closes his eyes as the crowd cheers, louder than usual, loud enough to get his hopes up, and then Celestino tells him: “182.34! That’s your personal best!”

“ _No_ ,” Yuuri says, even though it _felt_ like a personal best. He didn’t land the quad flip, but everything else worked just right. Maybe he’d been onto something, wearing gold for luck.

More than luck—to remind himself that gold was well within his reach.

His phone vibrates in his pocket and he’s in such a daze that he doesn’t even wait to leave the kiss and cry to check it. It’s a message from Viktor: _i knew you could do it <3 _

Yuuri is pretty sure the cameras capture every nuance of the stupid, giddy grin that overtakes his face.

As he heads to the stands to watch everyone else—something he forces himself to do, no matter how much he knows it’s going to hurt—he catches a strain of the commentary: “—an incredible performance. Yuuri Katsuki is the one to beat in the free skate.”

Right. He was in last place.

His phone starts going off again and Yuuri finds himself tagged in two Instagram posts: one from Phichit, a photo of Yuuri skating from somewhere in the stands, captioned _i’m, spinning around, move out of my way!!_ , and a blurrier photo from another angle, which Viktor’s captioned with a single heart-eyes emoji. Yuuri turns off notifications and finds himself an anonymous place in the crowd to wait it out.

 

* * *

 

Fourth place.

It’s not. Bad. But it’s not good either. Yuuri is at the very bottom of the pile when it comes to Final hopefuls, and he has to wait until NHK, all the way in the future at the end of November, to find out if he has a shot at it.

The one person who’s guaranteed a place is Yuri Plisetsky, wearing gold on the podium and sneering down at Leroy, who seems unbothered by silver. Yuuri would be a liar if he pretended he wasn’t jealous. He’s so jealous he wants to disappear. When Christophe gathers the other two medallists together for a podium selfie, Yuuri takes his cue and slips out of the stadium, around the back where it’s cold, and even with his tracksuit he’s shivering.

His solitude doesn’t last long.

“Oy! Katsuki!”

Yuuri takes a deep breath, willing himself to stay calm. “Plisetsky. Congratulations on your win today.”

“What the hell was that, huh?” Plisetsky demands. “You skated like shit yesterday and today you’re dressed like—whatever _that_ was meant to be—and getting the second-best free score. Where was that confidence yesterday?”

If someone had poked fun at Yuuri’s costume yesterday, he might’ve agreed. Today, he is fiercely defensive of it.

“My costume is perfectly respectable,” Yuuri says, “and—wait. Are you… are you _disappointed_ I wasn’t at my best?”

Plisetsky’s jaw drops comically low. “No! Of course not! All I’m saying is Viktor deserves someone who can skate better than you can.”

Yuuri softens. This, he can deal with—it’s an anxiety he’s carried on his shoulders for years, for almost as long as Yuri Plisetsky has been alive.

“You really look up to him, huh?”

That definitely isn’t what Plisetsky was expecting. “Viktor is yesterday’s news,” he says, but with no real heart behind his words. “I would never look up to such a useless old man. But you—”

He pauses. Frowns. Yuuri gives him an encouraging smile.

“You skate like him, okay?” Plisetsky snaps. “If you’re going to shit all over his legacy with your half-assed quad flips you might as well quit.”

There’s something circuitous about what Plisetsky is saying, or what he’s _trying_ to say, but with all layers of the teenage angst Yuuri can’t pick the real meaning. He latches onto the one observation that makes sense.

“You think I skate like Viktor?”

“Isn’t he coaching you?” Plisetsky narrows his eyes.

This must be some kind of cosmic joke. “No, he’s _not_ coaching me,” Yuuri says, “and I’d prefer it if you didn’t jump to conclusions.”

“Well, whatever,” Plisetsky says. “I better see you at the Final. Or else.”

Yuuri wants to ask, “Or else _what_?” but Plisetsky stalks off while Yuuri is still processing it, and that’s that.

 

* * *

 

That night, Yuuri skips dinner with all the other skaters in favour of room service with Viktor. Phichit is going out with the skaters, anyway, and Leo made the trip up too, so they’ll tell Yuuri if anything interesting happens. What’s more surprising is that Viktor elects to stay in too—they order a big bowl of pasta each but only manage to finish one between them, sitting on the floor in front of the TV with game shows playing in the background.

Yuuri’s costume sits unfolded on the unused bed, and Viktor’s coat lies beside it. The hotel has central heating—a luxury for Yuuri compared to his chilly apartment back in Detroit—and it makes the whole room feel very cosy. Intimate. The food discarded, they sit against the bed, knees touching.

“It’s easy to get complacent in a month,” Viktor is saying. Yuuri is only half paying attention. “You need to keep up your practice schedule, even when we’re travelling.”

“I know,” Yuuri says. He wonders if this is the sort of talk that had convinced Yuri Plisetsky that Viktor was coaching him.

Viktor slides down a little so that his shoulder is level with Yuuri’s. “And you need to choose an exhibition skate. You got away with it by coming fourth here but I expect better at the NHK, and I think everyone else does too. Is there anything you’ve always wanted to skate to? I could help you choreograph a routine.”

“Not really,” Yuuri says.

He’s lying. He thinks about the day he’d arrived back in Hasetsu after he’d graduated, so certain he was going to retire. Going to the rink didn’t feel like a chore, it felt like it could be _fun_ again. For Yuuko, his oldest friend, he had skated Viktor’s most memorable programme. _Stay Close To Me_. Well, it had been for Yuuko in person. In spirit, it had been for Viktor, and he hadn’t stopped skating it. Yuuri knew the routine to the point that sometimes he dreamt himself tracing the step sequences across the ice. He could never land the quad flip, though, not even in his dreams, and he hasn’t tried to skate it again since he’s added the quad flip to his roster.

“No?”

“No,” Yuuri says. He tries to sound more certain about it. “I’ll think of something.”

“I know you’ll surprise me.”

Viktor snakes an arm around Yuuri’s waist and pulls him closer. That should be the beginning and the end of it. Yuuri is warm and comfortable. And then Viktor kisses his neck.

For a few perilous moments Yuuri lets it happen, mostly because he’s frozen in place. But _god_ , it feels good. It feels better than possibly anything has ever felt, for anyone, in the entire world. Of that, Yuuri is utterly convinced. And then Viktor’s hand finds its way to Yuuri’s knee, moves along his thigh, and Yuuri has a horrible flash to their conversation that morning, and Viktor’s promise of _after_ , and knows he has to stop this before it goes too far.

“I spoke with Yuri Plisetsky earlier,” Yuuri says, breathless.

He doesn’t make eye contact, and Viktor doesn’t budge.

“He said I skate like you,” Yuuri adds.

“Oh, I know,” Viktor says, pausing where he is. (Which is better than nothing.) “I’ve always seen it.”

“What do you mean, _always_?” Yuuri asks. “We only met in August.”

Viktor jerks upright. “Do you think I had no idea who you were before then? I’m—” He laughs, but there’s a note of uncertainty in it. “—I’m almost offended. You were a competitor. Of course I knew who you were.”

“You,” Yuuri says uselessly, “you never said.”

“I thought you would have assumed,” Viktor says. “I don’t need to spell everything out, do I?”

He sounds annoyed. Yuuri almost bites out a _yes_ , but he holds his tongue.

“If you must know, I saw you skate for the first time at a Worlds,” Viktor says. “It must have been 2009.”

 _How embarrassing_ , Yuuri thinks. He says, “That was just after my first full year training in America.”

“You were alright,” Viktor says magnanimously. “But I was most interested in you because I saw hints of my skating in yours. Let me put it this way: I could tell you were a fan.”

Coming from anyone else, that would sound arrogant. From Viktor, it’s a genuine observation, and sort of a compliment too. Well, Yuuri is flattered. Viktor has known who he is since 2009—that’s about a third as long as Yuuri’s known who Viktor is, which is not insignificant.

There was a lapse in there somewhere, though.

“When we met in person for the first time,” Yuuri says, choosing his words delicately, “you acted like you didn’t know me.”

“At the gala dinner?” Viktor asks.

“At the gala dinner,” Yuuri says. That confirms it.

“I was pretty drunk then, Yuuri,” Viktor says.

He was must have been pretty drunk at the banquet in 2012 too.

“But,” Viktor says, leaping to his feet, “none of that matters, right? That’s the past, and we’re here, now! We should take advantage of it. We should order wine!”

Yuuri can’t remember why they agreed to do this in the first place. To pretend to be a couple. He’s not it even matters anymore. It’s the past. This is the here and the now, and Viktor’s paying for room service.

They order wine.

Halfway through the bottle, Viktor starts speaking Russian. He then informs Yuuri—in the most amateur Japanese that Yuuri has ever heard—that he can order the most expensive wine on the menu in seven different languages, which is all the languages he sort of knows. Russian is his mother tongue and English is his alcoholic aunt. He says he speaks French fluently too, but all Yuuri can understand of Viktor’s rambling is a line from _Lady Marmalade_ , which he’d rather pretend he didn’t. French is Viktor’s inheritance from Christophe, as well as some German and Italian, both of which Viktor assures Yuuri he is embarrassingly bad at speaking. The sixth is Yiddish, which he only speaks with Yakov, and his vocabulary is limited to food and cursing. Japanese is his seventh, and his vocabulary is limited to food.

Viktor speaks to Yuuri in Russian and Yuuri replies in Japanese. He spoke English every day for five years straight, but it’s fun like this—they’re only confusing each other, and Yuuri can say whatever he wants in the knowledge that Viktor won’t understand unless he’s asking for the most expensive wine on the menu. He says, _I like you, I don’t want this to end_. Viktor says something back in a language Yuuri is too drunk to recognise, so Yuuri laughs, and drinks more wine.

The bottle runs empty and Viktor orders another in French, giggling. He lapses back into English to placate whoever’s on the other end of the line and drops the call before he can order properly.

“It’s okay, we can have fun without alcohol,” Yuuri says, a little bit too aware of the irony.

Viktor seems to find it funny. He laughs, falling on top of Yuuri. Some things, they don’t need language to say. Viktor kisses Yuuri and kisses him places other than his lips and Yuuri kisses back and forgets all about the impending end, whenever that might be. He forgets about Viktor’s photoshoot next week and he forgets about NHK in November. The here and the now. That’s all that matters.

The kissing is pretty fantastic, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> couple of notes on this one: viktor speaking english and french fluently and viktor knowing who yuuri was before the banquet/knowing that he was a fan are both factoids from interviews (or maybe dvd extras for the former?) which were translated by fans on twitter. i don't have links right now, sorry. there is no date given for when viktor first became aware of yuuri so that part is all headcanon. i had a minor existential crisis because this chapter forced me to do some timeline stuff and i realised that yuuri has been viktor's fan for over half his life. that's a big deal.
> 
> one of my favourite parts of the classic fake dating story is when one character is so oblivious that the couple can literally kiss and this person will still think it's fake. imagine my delight to be working with a character like yuuri, who is so oblivious that he can literally buy someone a wedding ring and still not realise he's proposed. let's see how far this'll go, hmm? :P


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unlike most of this fic, the next two chapters come as a pair and follow on immediately one from the other, just in case you're reading this in the future and wondering if you should take a break. (now is a good time.) if you're reading this in the present, as i upload it, sorry about the wait i guess? it'll be worth it :)

Celestino is not happy about Los Angeles.

“Yuuri, a _week_! A few days, I might concede, but a week is too long.” He shakes his head, paces another lap around an arbitrary point of his own choosing. “No, I won't allow it.”

Steeling himself with a deep breath, Yuuri collects his thoughts. He’s worked through this argument. He knows what he’s planning to say. “I’m not making this decision lightly. Viktor knows a rink in LA where we—where _I_ can practise. It won’t be the same without your coaching, but I’ve trained on my own in Japan before. One week is not so bad. And it overlaps with when you leave for the Cup of China.”

“I can see you want this,” Celestino says, huffing out a sigh. “But so soon before the NHK?”

“I know,” Yuuri says. He _knows_. “Skate America was—I screw up a lot, but that was out of character, even for me. I was having a bad day. After that, I won’t let myself have any more bad days.”

Celestino looks almost sad as he says, “But what if you do?”

It certainly wouldn’t be unheard of. Now, though, something’s changed—Yuuri won’t let himself off the hook no matter what happens. He wants to go to NHK and he wants to _win_. He wants to be in the Grand Prix Final, a second time. A second debut.

“You just have to believe me,” Yuuri says. “I won’t.”

There’s a long pause. Yuuri twists his fingers together and watches as Celestino thinks it over. He’s a very visible thinker, twisting his lip and scratching at his chin.

“I trust your judgement,” Celestino says at last. He cracks a smile. “I also remember what it’s like to be young and in love. Don’t do anything I wouldn't do.”

Yuuri’s face heats up. “Of course.”

“And get that man of yours to take some footage of how your skating is coming along. Send it to me.”

“I will,” Yuuri says, nodding. It’s a good idea. The kind of idea he should’ve used to persuade Celestino in the first place. He’s lucky his coach likes him.

He leaves the rink sore from working on his quads and emotionally exhausted. There are gale-force winds blowing and rain threatening from charcoal-grey clouds overhead. Yuuri catches the bus and by the time it’s two stops away from his house there are large drops falling from the sky, marking the pavement like a poorly-made patchwork rug. When the bus stops the storm hits. It blows through the breezeblock stairwell, stalking Yuuri all the way to his front door.

“Wow,” is all Phichit says.

Yuuri shuts the door behind him and slumps back against it. “Where’s Viktor?”

“You’re home late and you’re drenched and all you can ask is ‘where’s Viktor?’” Phichit gives Yuuri a pitying look. “ _Wow_.”

“Oh, shut up.” Yuuri slips off his backpack—waterproof, thankfully—and shoves it into Phichit’s waiting arms. “So where is he?”

“Your boyfriend went to the grocery store. He said he was craving sauerkraut.”

That sounds like exactly the sort of stupid excuse Viktor would use if he was feeling aimless and didn’t really know what to do with himself. If Yuuri were more prone to psychoanalysis, he might’ve joked that Viktor wasnt craving sauerkraut, he was craving _direction_. Yuuri gets it. Viktor’s been cooped up here in Detroit for too long. His dog is back in Russia and he hasn’t done any modelling work recently. It’s almost like—

“Anyway, so we’re making sausages tonight,” Phichit says, “like a German-style dinner. I told Viktor to get some stuff. Like, he’s getting horseradish. I’ve never had it but Viktor says it’s like wasabi but not spicy. Have you had it before, Yuuri? _Yuuri_?”

—like Yuuri's holding Viktor back.

“Sorry,” Yuuri says. “I zoned out.”

“It’s alright,” Phichit says. “Something got you down?”

Yuuri manages a smile. “Always. You know me.”

Phichit does not smile back.

“I mean—” Yuuri scratches the back of his head. “Why isn’t he bored of me yet?”

 _For all I know, he could be_ , Yuuri thinks, but he doesn’t say that part out loud.

“He likes you,” Phichit says.

“Yeah, as a friend,” Yuuri says. “He’s been in Detroit for so long that he _must_ be bored. And it’s not like I’m—”

The front door swings open—Yuuri doesn't stop to wonder when Viktor got a key. Of _course_ Viktor has a key. Phichit would’ve had it cut for him without bothering to ask Yuuri. Viktor makes a dramatic entrance by shaking out an umbrella in front of him—Yuuri’s umbrella? The one he left at home that morning?—and spraying Yuuri with tiny, chilling droplets.

“Don’t worry about it,” Yuuri mutters. “I’m already wet.”

Viktor puts the umbrella to one side and greets Yuuri with a broad, oblivious grin. His hands are full of plastic bags. “I bought dinner!”

He doesn’t _seem_ bored.

“Yuuri, how did the talk with Celestino go? Did you convince him to let you come to LA? Hey, have you had horseradish before? Phichit hasn’t. I’m going to cook you the best dinner tonight! Just you wait!”

“Don’t be so cocky,” Phichit says. “You’ve never cooked a meal in your life.”

“Rude! A gross exaggeration!” Viktor is in the kitchen now and probably still gesticulating—Yuuri imagines him putting a hand to his chest, still holding all those bags. “I’ve cooked dinner for you two at least three times.”

“Yeah, I know, we still have stains on the pot from all that burnt pasta,” Phichit says.

“I’m not talking to you,” Viktor says. “Yuuri!”

When Yuuri snaps back to attention, Viktor is out of the kitchen. He pauses in front of Yuuri and looks at him curiously.

“Have you had horseradish before?”

“I have,” Yuuri says. “And Celestino said I can come.”

Viktor beams, sneaks a look over his shoulder and kisses Yuuri while Phichit isn’t looking. “I can’t wait!”

The question of what Viktor’s still doing here— _that_ can wait.

 

* * *

 

Every street in LA is wide and the buildings are low—it’s spread out wide and Yuuri is profoundly out of place in a city so unlike anything he knows. Not even having Viktor by his side is enough to make the extravagant resort hotel any more like a home. It’s a week, a whole week. Celestino hadn’t been happy and now Yuuri isn’t happy either.

Viktor is blissfully unaware of this.

They’ve only just arrived. Yuuri’s still thinking about the results from Skate America and now from Skate Canada too—and soon it’s the Cup of China, and Phichit will be skating his first event of the season, adding another name to the rolling count that Yuuri has been keeping. He’s obsessing over the Grand Prix Final, keeping count of points and scores and keeping one question at the front of his mind: how much will it take for him to make it?

“What’s the phrase—off with the fairies?” Viktor nudges at Yuuri with his toe, leaning across from his deck chair, poolside. “You’re somewhere else today.”

Somewhere else, maybe in some sort of city without so many palm trees. “It’s nothing,” Yuuri says.

“I’ll take a penny for your thoughts,” Viktor says. He’s been reading up on idioms. “Earth to—”

“You’re still here,” Yuuri says. It’s not what he meant to say.

Viktor laughs. “Oh, dear. Should I leave?”

“No, I mean—I screwed up. I probably won’t even make it to the Final. I’m not exactly the sort of person the press wants to see alongside Viktor Nikiforov.”

Yuuri has been thinking about things other than the Grand Prix. He’s been thinking about Viktor, trying to remember why they agreed to pretend to be in a relationship in the first place. There was something about boosting both of their profiles, for Yuuri’s comeback, Viktor’s career change. He doesn’t ask why Viktor is still there with him, as a person—just as a skater, for now.

Viktor does not address any of this. “You _will_ make it to the Final,” he says.

“And what about us?” Yuuri asks, because now that he’s started it he needs closure. “Are you still happy with everyone thinking we’re in a relationship?”

There’s a checklist of all the ways Yuuri is invested in this relationship: one, he doesn’t want to let his family down; two, he doesn’t want to create _too_ much of a media storm when they break up; three, he likes what he has with Viktor, and would be quite happy to keep having it, under whatever terms Viktor will allow it.

Viktor says, “I’m happy.”

“Me too,” Yuuri says.

He lets out a breath. It’s fine as it is, for now.

 

* * *

 

Viktor’s photoshoot is in a professional studio just outside the city centre. Yuuri thinks maybe they’re going to walk or catch a bus, but Viktor calls an Uber, makes sure it’s a fancy car, and the trip takes only a few minutes. The studio itself is in a white-walled building that Yuuri recognises as painfully modernist from his one semester of architecture back at college. The inside is all glass and brushed steel and Viktor is rushed through door after door by well-meaning but snappy assistants in colour-coordinated suits; Yuuri has no choice but to follow.

They make it to a room that’s set up with a white screen and enough lights to put Viktor’s collection of lamps to shame. A brusque woman whisks him away into a dressing room and Viktor follows without so much as a glance back at Yuuri.

Yuuri shouldn’t be so surprised. This is Viktor’s job. It’s only natural he’d want to act as professional as possible. And yet.

An intern with a clipboard approaches Yuuri. “Friend of Viktor’s?” she asks. “Let’s find you somewhere to sit and wait.”

“I’m his boyfriend,” Yuuri says, and it comes out harsher than he’d intended. Possessive.

“Oh!” The intern blinks at him for a moment before smiling in recognition. “My bad. I didn’t recognise you. Katsuki, right? I sort of follow figure skating. You look different without your hair all slicked back. Could I get an autograph?”

She hands Yuuri the clipboard. Now it’s his turn to stare blankly. “An… ?”

“You know, like you sign your name?”

It’s probably out of kindness that she assumes it’s a language misunderstanding but Yuuri is peeved anyway. His English is fluent. It’s better than Viktor’s. He can’t say any of that, though. Words fail him in situations like this. Most things fail him. He takes the clipboard and scribbles the kanji for his name in the top corner, then hacks out the English signature he hasn’t spent any time perfecting in brackets beside it.

The intern thanks him and scurries off—she leaves Yuuri in an uncomfortable folding chair, in what must be the only part of the room left in shadow.

When Viktor comes back into the room, he glows brighter than any artificial lighting. He’s beautiful. Yuuri knows that, has known it for years. It still takes him by surprise. There’s makeup on Viktor’s face to emphasise his cheekbones and the clothes he’s wearing are so impractical that they’ll never be worn outside of this photoshoot, but in the moments between the camera going off and the shoot director fussing over Viktor’s pose, he relaxes into something more like himself, idiosyncratic, lighthearted. That’s when Yuuri finds him most beautiful.

Viktor cycles through pose after pose before the director deems that they’re done. The photographer puts down his camera and Viktor stops posing and Yuuri figures that’s that.

“Hey, Viktor, are we—”

“Not now, Yuuri,” Viktor says shortly. For what it’s worth, he looks embarrassed for snapping almost immediately. More gently, he adds, “That was only the first of my outfits today.”

“Right.”

Yuuri feels like an idiot. He feels like if anyone else called themselves an idiot they’d be impinging on his copyright, the patent he holds over the entire concept of idiocy.

“We’ll do something nice after,” Viktor says. “Promise.”

Yuuri does not want to do something nice after. He wants to go back to the resort hotel and lock himself in the bathroom. He forces himself to smile. “Sure.”

And then Viktor’s gone, getting dressed up in another pretty but useless outfit.

The shoot drags on. Yuuri grows tired of watching Viktor and gets out his phone, scrolls Instagram for a bit, watches videos of his competitors practising while he’s not—he resolves not to follow Viktor around tomorrow. He’ll go to the rink. And if he keeps feeling like this he’ll get on a plane and go back to Detroit early, catch Celestino and Phichit before they leave for the Cup of China.

It ends before lunchtime, a few hours that feel like a whole day. Yuuri is almost shocked to see the sun high in the sky when they leave. He’s used to the clouds and the cold back in Detroit at this time of year. Los Angeles is warm and bright and Yuuri didn’t bring sunglasses.

“So now you’ve seen me at work,” Viktor says. “What did you think?”

For a while, Yuuri doesn’t say anything. They’re standing under the scant shade of a palm tree, waiting for the Uber back to the hotel.

“Yuuri?”

“You weren’t…” Yuuri trails off. “It’s like I wasn’t there.”

He doesn’t have to look at Viktor to see the way his face falls. Well, fine, let him be sad. Yuuri’s been moping all morning.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Viktor says.

“It’s fine,” Yuuri says, even though it’s kind of not. “I don’t want to come back.”

Viktor puts a hand around Yuuri’s wrist. “Tomorrow’s free. We’ll go to the rink.”

Yuuri leans a little closer to Viktor.

“You don’t have to come back,” Viktor adds.

As their car pulls up, Yuuri’s hit by a moment of clarity. He’s not done. “You were different, too,” he says. “More… like everyone else there. High-strung. Do you hate it that much?”

“I don’t hate it,” Viktor says.

“You were nicer back when you were a skater,” Yuuri says. Apparently he’s digging himself a hole today, and he’s going to climb down as low as he can go. “Even all those years we competed against each other and you never spoke to me once. I’ve never seen you like this, Viktor.”

Yuuri is aware he’s crossed a line. For a very long time, well into the drive, Viktor does not say anything. They sit a respectful distance apart. The driver has the radio tuned to a music station and _Chandelier_ is playing, bolder and more hopeful than Yuuri could ever be.

“I’m sorry,” Viktor says at last. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

“You don’t have to do anything to make it up to me,” Yuuri says. “Just… just be who you are.”

They fall back into silence.

 

* * *

 

At the hotel, Viktor orders room service and he and Yuuri eat quietly, perfunctorily. Yuuri lets his food settle and then spends the rest of the afternoon at the resort’s gym. He leaves Viktor in the room. He doesn’t like arguing—not that they’re arguing, really. Working through tension is more like it. When he gets back, Viktor is asleep on the bed they’re sharing, snoring a little.

Yuuri sits and watches him. It’s kind of creepy, like something out of _Twilight_ , but Viktor is so peaceful like this, like there’s nothing to argue about.

The thing is, Viktor is still there. He’s seen Yuuri at his lowest, and Viktor is still there, by his side. That’s got to mean something.

When Viktor wakes up he’s all spirited again. He posts a selfie from last night of the two of them at by the pool on Instagram. They look like a couple. Yuuri likes the post, even though he’s lying beside Viktor on the bed and he could just say, “I like this photo of us.”

It’s worth it for Viktor’s reaction. “You liked it!” he chirps.

Yuuri feels like he’s melting, sinking deeper into the pillow. “Of course I did,” he says.

Viktor clicks his tongue. The bed dips as he turns onto his side. “Still want to do something tonight?”

“I wouldn’t mind going for a walk,” Yuuri says. “Today was…”

“—strange for you?” Viktor tries.

“Yeah.” Yuuri shifts too, so they’re facing each other. “I just… need a little air.”

Viktor reaches out and pushes Yuuri’s hair out of his eyes, straightens his glasses. “Does that mean you want to go alone?”

His hand lingers. Yuuri wonders. He doesn’t want to go alone, not really. He wants to stay here and make things right, but he knows that Viktor will be content with walking for all of fifteen minutes and then he’ll decide that they’re dining out at the fanciest restaurant they can find, and Yuuri doesn’t want that at all. Also, he has no idea how to make things right.

“No,” Yuuri says. “I mean, yeah. Maybe.”

Something’s different between them. Before, that might’ve offended Viktor. Now, he just smiles. “Okay. You go. I’ll get room service.”

When Yuuri goes, he goes quietly. The city hums around him but he walks with determination and he walks blocks and blocks until he hits a strip of restaurants and his hunger overtakes his aimless boredom. Tomorrow, he’ll be at the rink, and the boredom will have passed. Until then. He thinks of the fancy restaurant Viktor would’ve taken him to.

He gets In-N-Out. Sitting in a booth by the window with a burger and fries, Yuuri feels the closest to normal he has since arriving in Los Angeles.

So Viktor is walking on eggshells around Yuuri. Aware that he’s caused offence, trying to be kind. Alone with his thoughts, Yuuri realises it with the crushing weight of hindsight and he feels more useless than ever. He’d brushed Viktor off to go out alone right when Viktor needed him most—or, needed to show him he was sorry. But… there’s more to it than that.

There’s a fry hanging out of Yuuri’s mouth when it hits him. Viktor isn't bored. He’s not bored of following Yuuri around and he’s not bored of Detroit. He _is_ happy, just like he said; impossibly, he’s happy being Yuuri’s trophy boyfriend and taking up space in his bed and kissing him whenever he sees fit. He must be happy to be so close to figure skating again. All of this—it’s his release. It makes sense now: Viktor is _not_ happy modelling.

As for Yuuri—Yuuri can stay in Los Angeles. During the day he can go to the rink and he can train as hard as he likes. He’s been sadder, and he’s brought himself back from worse sadness. What he doesn’t know—wonders if he’ll _ever_ know—is how to deal with this sort of malaise when it’s someone else feeling it. When it’s _Viktor_.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter picks up immediately after the last. if you're reading as i post the update, you might want to go back and refresh yourself. it's only a couple hundred words.
> 
> a word of caution: the foretold rating change has come to pass. this chapter contains sexual content.

The sun sets early and by the time Yuuri gets back to the hotel there’s a tray of expensive room service dinner on the desk and Viktor is halfway through dessert.

“How was your walk?” Viktor asks.

“Fine,” Yuuri says. “How’s dessert?”

“It’s good,” Viktor says, stilted.

The thing is, Viktor is still there. Despite everything. And Yuuri is done feeling bad about it, over the worry and the weird guilt, if only for this moment. He takes his glasses off and climbs onto the bed beside Viktor, picking up the spoon from his bowl of fruit and ice cream. They make eye contact and Yuuri holds it steady as he licks the spoon clean.

“Changed my mind,” Viktor says. His voice is still coming out odd, but in a different way. “I’ve had enough.”

Viktor moves to put his dessert bowl to one side, perching it precariously on the bedside table, and Yuuri throws the spoon to the floor with only a momentary flash of regret for the fact that he’ll have to pick it up later. He throws himself onto Viktor, pushing him down onto the bed and kissing him with force. Viktor is in a white terry cloth bathrobe, the kind fancy hotels give people in movies, and Yuuri has no idea what’s underneath it but he gets the feeling the answer is _nothing_. The bathrobe falls apart at Viktor’s collarbones and exposes just enough of his chest underneath. Yuuri doesn’t let himself hesitate. He remembers the way Viktor had kissed him in the hotel room in Chicago and kisses like that—or as close to that as he can get—along Viktor's jawline, down his neck, and Viktor _gasps_ , pulling Yuuri closer.

It’s not too cold outside and not too heated in the hotel room but there’s sweat beading where their bodies touch, where Viktor’s hands slip up behind Yuuri and untuck his shirt, where his fingers press into Yuuri’s back, raking up and down. Yuuri arches and as soon as his mouth is away from Viktor, Viktor captures it again with his own, kissing him deep and slow. Viktor’s breath against brushes his lips, Viktor’s eyelashes against his cheeks; Viktor pulls Yuuri's shirt over his head and Yuuri can hardly believe that the body between him and Viktor is his own. He tangles his fingers in Viktor’s hair. This is a dream he’s had countless times. Maybe the circumstances now aren’t ideal, but—it’s real.

 _Selfish_ , Yuuri thinks.

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, voice breaking on the second syllable, low, desperate. “Yuuri, please—”

Experimentally, Yuuri moves against Viktor. They’re both hard—it makes sense, given the situation, even if Viktor isn’t necessarily attracted to Yuuri the same way Yuuri is to him—and although Yuuri’s never done this before, his body catches on fast. He wants to talk. He wants to ask Viktor how it feels. He doesn’t want to break the spell.

They follow the natural curves of motion they’re drawing together; Yuuri on top of Viktor becomes the two of them lying on their sides becomes Viktor on top of Yuuri like some shameless fantasy writ large. Yuuri pretends that he knows what he’s doing until he _does_ know, for sure, that this is what the two of them need.

Afterwards, Yuuri lies on the bed and Viktor’s beside him with his bathrobe still hanging open and his hair sticking out at all angles, exhausted and thoroughly debauched. It dawns on Yuuri slowly that this is his handiwork. He’s not tired. If anything, he’s energised. But Viktor’s eyes are closed and he’s still so messy, so Yuuri takes it upon himself to clean up for both of them.

Tomorrow, he’ll be at the rink, and the mood will pass. Until then, Yuuri won’t think about it. He won’t question how he got here or why he’s still here or why _Viktor_ is still here. He won’t accuse himself of any more selfishness; he’ll just feel, and feel, and feel, enough for two.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri wakes up to a blinding reminder that they forgot to close the curtains last night. He rubs his eyes and turns over to press his face into the pillow. Unfortunately, he catches a glimpse of the time on his way, picked out in red LEDs on the same alarm clock as they use in every other hotel. It’s just after seven, later than he would’ve liked to extract himself from his zombie-like morning state, and the rink beckons. He stays face-down for a while longer, though. As long as he can justify.

When he sits up and puts on his glasses, the world comes back into focus. Yuuri hadn’t been drunk last night, but he’d still managed to embarrass himself.

Gently, he shakes Viktor awake. “Viktor. Rink.”

He’s barely coherent, but then again, it takes a little more than bright sunlight to wake Yuuri properly. He clears his throat.

“We need to go. Skate. Skating.”

Viktor’s eyes open, slow, and his gaze searches for a minute before he finds Yuuri.

“Skating,” Yuuri says firmly. “Let’s go.”

And because everything is unfair and Viktor is a morning person, he springs to life and pulls Yuuri back down to the bed. “Hmm, I think we should stay in bed a while longer,” he says. “And. You know.”

Yuuri does know, and the way Viktor says it is the least sexy thing Yuuri’s ever heard—Viktor sounds like a grade schooler, talking around the matter. It doesn’t help that Yuuri is collapsed on top of him at an awkward angle. None of that matters, though. There is absolutely nothing more appealing to Yuuri than staying in bed and marvelling at the way he can make Viktor come apart, a power he hadn’t known he could possess.

But.

“It’s three weeks until the NHK Trophy,” Yuuri says. “I need to go to the rink, and you at least need to tell me where it is.”

“ _Or_ ,” Viktor says, drawing the word out, “we could stay in bed. Think of it like warming up.”

Yuuri remembers seeing some sort of fun fact in a magazine about how many calories it burns to have—well, he doesn’t remember the exact number, but it was a significant amount of calories. It _would_ be warm-up, after a fashion.

“Maybe just a few minutes more—”

Viktor breaks into a grin—it doesn’t last long, because then he’s kissing Yuuri, dragging him back under the covers, and nothing else really matters to Yuuri after that.

 

* * *

 

They make it to the rink after a late breakfast, or an early lunch, around midday. It’s a little while away from the hotel and no-one trains there. So it’s isolated, it’s the middle of a school day, and the rink is imperfectly empty. The few stragglers who are there don’t linger for long, not when they see the kind of moves Yuuri is pulling off. There’s nothing malicious about it. These people don't know who Yuuri is. There’s no weight of expectation from an audience, and not from a coach either. If even Celestino was there, it would be completely different. Viktor doesn’t have that effect on Yuuri. He doesn’t have any stake in Yuuri’s wins or his losses. And Yuuri did lose, badly.

Viktor is still there.

Yuuri runs through his short programme, drilling the step sequences until he feels dizzy and his ankles are aching. To date, he hasn’t given a perfect performance of his _Volkslied_ routine. If he wants to make it to the GPF that has to change.

Occasionally, he skates to the sidelines to ask Viktor for advice. Viktor didn’t bring his skates to Los Angeles, but he never ceases to make himself useful.

This time, Yuuri asks, “Why don’t you come skate too?”

“I didn’t bring my—”

“You can rent a pair.” Yuuri gives Viktor his best unimpressed look. “And don’t tell me it’s not the same. I know you. You’d be good enough to skate on a pair of knives taped to ballet shoes.”

“Yuuri, I am shocked!” Viktor says, his jaw dropping with perfect comic exaggeration. He leans over the barrier, dangling his arms low and tangling his fingers with Yuuri’s. “Have _you_ ever tried skating on knives taped to ballet shoes?”

Yuuri lets Viktor hold his hands, only blushing a little. “Just rent some skates.”

“I've been thinking about what you said, you know.” Viktor sighs, pulling back a little. “That I was nicer when I was skating.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Yuuri says. He’d let it slip in the heat of the moment. A bad habit of his. The sentiment and the sincerity was there, but Yuuri’s words were far harsher than Viktor deserved. With hindsight—and with Viktor bringing it up again—it’s clear to Yuuri just how much he _didn’t_ mean it.

Viktor half-smiles. “I know—”

That surprises Yuuri. He doesn’t get a chance to say so, though, as Viktor forges on ahead through the awkwardness.

“—but it made me think anyway. I want to be someone you can be proud to call your boyfriend, Yuuri.”

“That’s—no, I—” Yuuri stumbles over his words, flustered. _Boyfriend_. There’s no room for those thoughts today. He settles on, “I should be saying that to you.”

“Never,” Viktor says. “You’re already—I’m the one who needs to work things out.”

Can he even hear himself? Viktor—perfect, perfectly flawed Viktor—doesn’t need to change at all. He’s already miles more than Yuuri could have dreamed he’d be.

“I told you I didn’t mean it,” Yuuri says weakly.

Viktor rolls his eyes. “I’ll hire some skates.”

And that goes some way to working things out—maybe it might go a lot of the way, in Viktor’s mind—but they’re still skating around this particular issue. At least on ice, following Yuuri as he practices, Viktor is able to give more detailed advice. He doesn’t talk like a coach, but having been closer to the sport more recently, he has some insights that Yuuri wouldn’t be able to get from anyone else. And when Yuuri messes up, Viktor winks at him and tells him to try again. It stops feeling like practice. It starts to feel like a date.

Still, Yuuri is wary of letting his focus slip. Each time Viktor lets him off easy for a stupid mistake, he pushes himself harder. That’s the only way he knows to improve.

He finishes around four. It feels like it’s been longer than four hours and a few water breaks. Yuuri’s stomach grumbles ominously.

“I’m surprised you’re still standing,” Viktor says. “How long was that?”

“Probably too long,” Yuuri concedes.

Viktor looks sympathetic. “What meal are we up to now—lunch? Dinner? Let’s go back to the hotel and order—”

“Let’s get takeout,” Yuuri says. “I’m sick of room service.”

“Yuuri, it’s been two days!” Viktor says.

He’s so dramatic about these things, which makes it easy to forget that he isn’t actually putting up a fight. They find a place near the hotel that does Chinese and eat on the bed with the TV on for background noise. Neither of them are paying attention. This is how Yuuri wants it to be all the time.

There’s the unspoken question, though: _what do we do now?_ Yuuri feels like he and Viktor are on the same page, or at least a few pages away, closer than they used to be. Sometimes that’s all it takes. You have a fight, you work things out. You rebuild the fallen bridge better than it was built in the first place, putting in stronger foundations, making sure that next time someone wants to cross it they’ll make it to the other side safely. But—this isn’t just a new bridge. It’s some sort of sci-fi hovercraft, a barge that’ll get you across the river and give you a massage and a complimentary bottle of wine.

The TV is playing some sort of cooking competition and Yuuri is talking about everything unimportant to fill the space when Viktor says, “I have another photoshoot tomorrow. I would like you to come.”

Yuuri frowns. He wants to turn off the TV, but he doesn’t know where the remote got to. “You said I didn’t have to come back.”

“You _don’t_ have to,” Viktor says, “but I’m asking you, if you want to. Do you think that’s selfish of me?”

It is, a little, but Yuuri isn’t really one to talk. “I’ll think about it,” he says.

“Good.” Viktor nods to himself, like that’s a better outcome than he could have expected—which, frankly, it is. “Sleep on it.”

“I will,” Yuuri promises.

It’s not a hollow promise. He has no way of knowing what Viktor is thinking. There could be some strange, elaborate, uniquely _Viktor_ reason why he wants Yuuri there. He could just like the company. But Yuuri promised Celestino he’d skate, and that he wouldn’t get too distracted—letting Viktor sweep him up in his glamorous lifestyle would be a mistake.

So. He’ll sleep on it. (Whether or not he gets as much sleep as he would’ve liked is another matter, and if he wakes up feeling like he’s been hit by a truck, then that’s entirely Viktor’s fault for keeping him up so late.)

 

* * *

 

“I’ve decided.”

Viktor perks up at that, looking over his shoulder. He’s endearing like this, toothbrush hanging out the side of his lips and his hair still wet from the shower.

“What’s your decision?”

Yuuri can understand Viktor perfectly well, but he’s in a mood, so he says, “What? Stop brushing your teeth and say that again.”

Viktor yanks the toothbrush from his mouth and points it at Yuuri. “What’s your decision?”

“I’ll come with you,” Yuuri says, “but only for the morning. Then I’m going back to the rink. You can call me an Uber.”

“And pay for it too!” Viktor jumps on Yuuri, pulling him into a hug. “Thank you, thank you! You can’t know how much this means to me.”

“I’ve got a bit of an idea,” Yuuri says into Viktor’s shoulder.

“Well, you’d better get ready, then.”

It seems like a blur a second later when Viktor is back to brushing his teeth and Yuuri takes off his shirt to find a toothpaste stain on the back. It’s unreal that he can have this kind of relationship with Viktor without it actually being a _relationship_.

That—Yuuri will think about that later. For now, he’s still ostensibly Viktor’s boyfriend, and he has to play a slightly different role in public than in private.

He feels the mask slipping the closer they get to the studio. It’s the same as two days ago, the same brusque attitudes, the same impatient glances from people who don’t care what role Yuuri’s playing so long as they can get him out of the way. Viktor is the star of the show and he wears a mask, too. Yuuri wants to be annoyed but he only feels pity.

The same seat is waiting for Yuuri at the side of the room. The intern who’d asked him for his autograph walks past him like he isn’t there.

Yuuri scrolls through his phone while Viktor gets ready and this time, out of self preservation, looks up briefly when Viktor re-enters the room and then looks right back at his phone. He won’t be caught up in this weird, unwelcoming world.

Except. Something’s different.

Viktor is shown to the set for the photoshoot, a collection of variously-coloured boxes—no doubt chosen for the way they complement his outfits—for him to pose against. The director gestures for him to put one leg up on a low blue box and stare into the distance in statuesque contemplation. Yuuri stifles a snort; he can’t imagine Viktor ever being so placid, although he supposes that’s the whole point of modelling.

Then again, evidently Viktor can’t see himself doing that either. Instead of following the director’s instructions, he hoists himself up to sit on a larger box in a sickly shade of yellow and sticks his feet on the blue box. He puts his hands behind him and throws his head back, shooting Yuuri a grin.

“Like this?” Viktor asks the director.

Yuuri’s heart stutters in his chest. He made this happen.

“No, not like that at all!” the director yells. “What’s gotten into you today, Nikiforov?”

“I just think this pose works better,” Viktor said. Yuuri can no longer see his face, but he knows the look by heart.

On any other day, it might’ve been time for Yuuri’s scheduled existential crisis reality check. He’s on holiday in Los Angeles with the man who may well be the love of his life, whose presence has followed Yuuri from “Yuuri and Viktor Katsuki” surrounded by hearts in the margins of his notebooks at 14 to Viktor Nikiforov who shares his bed and went down on him in the shower that morning.

On any other day.

Today, Yuuri is used to this. The thought hits him and settles uncomfortably. He’s getting complacent.

A booming voice breaks Yuuri’s concentration. “Oh, I’m sorry,” the director is saying, “are _you_ in charge of this photoshoot now?”

“I should have some say in how I do my job,” Viktor tries.

Even from far away, Yuuri can tell he’s fighting a losing battle. The argument rages on and, unable to stand it, Yuuri removes himself from the studio, out the front door, and sits on the steps. He takes a lazy photo of the palm trees—atmospheric, because it’s a cloudy day—and uploads it to Instagram: _i don’t mind this city after all_.

It’s not half an hour later when Viktor sits down beside him. He’s dressed down, out of his makeup and fancy clothes.

“Well, that’s that,” Viktor says.

“You’re on break?” Yuuri guesses.

“Sure,” Viktor says. “Permanent break. Artistic differences.”

Yuuri whips around so fast he feels a muscle crack in his neck. “They fired you?”

“We parted ways. Turns out you can only pull so many silly faces before you’re not considered a model anymore.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Yuuri says. _For me_ , he thinks.

Viktor stays quiet for a moment, almost in that pensive pose the director wanted him to do. “I feel better now. It’s not like I’ll never model again. But I can do it on my own terms.”

And, so help him, Yuuri feels better too. He wants to do something stupid and impulsive like give Viktor a hug. Luckily, Viktor does it for him.

Now there’s only one thing left for Yuuri to worry about: where they go from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a further word of caution: sex is not a reasonable substitute for communication in a healthy relationship.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a word of caution: there is very mild sexual content in this chapter.

Time passes slower in Los Angeles. Yuuri wakes up every morning to Viktor by his side—or sometimes Viktor is up already, pacing restlessly, sitting up in bed and wasting time on social media, showering—and he takes the days hour by hour, spending most of his time at the rink, practicing steadily and never overexerting himself.

For all the contentment he feels, another worry is stored up and added to the reserves at the back of his mind.

It’s late afternoon and Viktor’s at the pool—Yuuri elected to stay back in the hotel room, claiming tiredness. He’s tired in the mental sense, but he doesn’t have the English vocabulary to explain that, so he conflates it with the other kind of tiredness, the kind that should be aching in his bones after a long day at the rink.

The hotel room is quiet except for the low buzzing of the minibar. Left alone with his thoughts, Yuuri invariably obsesses.

He finds an article about Viktor: _Viktor Nikiforov loses modelling contract for “pulling too many silly faces.”_ It’s a perfectly complimentary article, poking gentle fun at Viktor for not being able to keep his personality out of such a famously dour profession. The comment section is, of course, filled with stupidity, people who have taken it upon themselves to itemise all of Viktor’s supposed flaws and decry them publicly.

 _Should’ve stuck to skating_ , one comment reads.

Yuuri closes the tab.

Because he hates himself—why else would it be?—he opens up a new tab and googles himself in English. There are more new articles than he’d expected, things like _Yuuri Katsuki was tipped to be one of this season’s main contenders—what happened?_ , and _We can’t get enough of figure skater Yuuri Katsuki’s routine to the hardest piano piece ever written!_

“It’s not the hardest,” he mumbles. But the idea of playing on that hype, pushing his routine to be _the hardest_ too, is morbidly appealing.

He squashes that thought before it can grow.

The fact remains, though: he’s _somebody_ again. People know his name. They’re tweeting about his routines. One hardcore fan is even calculating the scores it’ll take in the NHK for Yuuri to make it through to the Final, which is something Yuuri thought only he could be bothered to do.

What was it Viktor had said, in another fancy hotel room, a lifetime ago? It was gone from Yuuri’s mind for so long, forgotten in favour of more important things like quadruple flips and electricity bills, but now it comes back like it was yesterday.

_I think we could both do with a bit of notoriety._

Well, they have it.

Yuuri occupies the rest of the afternoon comprehensively digesting the latest figure skating news. Phichit is tipped as the favourite for the Cup of China—the one to beat—with some strong competition from Jean-Jacques Leroy. It looks likely that Otabek Altin will take gold again after his win at Skate Canada, but he’ll be against Yuri Plisetsky at the Rostelecom, so anything could happen. And then it’s Trophée Éric Bompard, and hopefully that will be Phichit again.

Of course, it’s never so simple.

What they’re saying for the NHK is this: there is no clear favourite. For the first time in a long time, Yuuri feels an emotion he can’t name stir inside him—it’s almost _competitive_ , almost _ambitious_. It’s closer to _content_. He keeps reading articles.

When Viktor comes back into the hotel room, he’s brandishing his phone like a trophy. “Yuuri, guess what?”

Yuuri indulges him. “What?”

“I got a call from a modelling agency in the UK while I was out by the pool! They want me to sign with them.” He comes over all starry-eyed. “They said it’ll be a place where I can just _be myself_ , Yuuri.”

“That’s great,” Yuuri says, with less feeling than he intends. He _is_ proud of Viktor. It sounds like an amazing opportunity. But also—

“I thought you were tired,” Viktor teases, plopping down on the bed next to Yuuri.

“I slept a little,” Yuuri says, because it’s better that Viktor thinks he was using his time well. “I’m feeling better now.”

“Good.” Viktor nods to himself. “This holiday has been good for you, I think.”

It has. Maybe Yuuri wasn’t willing to acknowledge it in the confines of his own mind, for whatever reason, but hearing someone else say it makes it tangibly real.

“How about you?” he asks.

Viktor shuffles closer to Yuuri. “We should extend our stay until Sunday. It’s not like Celestino will be back in Detroit before Tuesday, anyway.”

Yuuri nods. It’s been good for both of them.

“And,” Viktor says, hesitant, “I think I’m going to take the contract. I know London is a long way away, but… it’s closer to home. And I miss Makkachin—she’s too old to travel now, you know, but I can go back to Saint Petersburg more often.”

Yuuri swallows his own feelings on the matter, on his proximity to Viktor. It’s of no consequence—they’re both doing better. “I think that’s a good idea,” he says.

It’s worth it for the smile on Viktor’s face.

 

* * *

 

The lamps are all off and even the blinds are closed. Yuuri’s phone, face down on the bedside table, flashes the notification light—the white glow seeps out from beneath his phone’s plastic case but it doesn’t go far to setting a mood.

“Viktor,” Yuuri says quietly, “are you awake?”

“Mm. Just about.”

Yuuri rolls over, away from the notification light, so that he’s facing Viktor. “Can we talk about something?”

“It’s so late, Yuuri,” Viktor says. “Quickly.”

Quickly. Okay. It’s hard to take a deep breath at this angle and in the dark Yuuri can’t use any of his other tricks to make this easier. He just has to say it.

“When we get back to Detroit, let’s stop pretending.”

This is for the best. No matter how selfishly Yuuri wants to keep Viktor all to himself, he can’t live his life in limbo any longer. Ending it now, before things can get any messier than they already are, is the right thing to do.

These are the things Yuuri doesn’t think about: he doesn’t think about how he accidentally got his whole family and probably the entire population of Hasetsu invested in his relationship with Viktor; he doesn’t think about Phichit, telling him he thinks it’s reciprocal; he doesn’t think about any of the articles with headlines calling him “Viktor Nikiforov’s boyfriend,” and he doesn’t think about Viktor kissing him, pulling him closer and pushing him over the edge. He definitely doesn’t think about how he feels when he’s alone with his thoughts. He doesn’t think about any words beginning with L.

He bites his lip. Waits to see how Viktor reacts. And Viktor takes forever to react—Yuuri almost wonders if he’s fallen asleep.

But then, sounding perfectly alert, Viktor lets out a breathy laugh. “Yeah. I think that’s a good idea.”

It’s such a relief that Yuuri almost shouts, _thank you, thank you, thank you_. It doesn’t feel as freeing as he thought it’d feel, but it’s good to have an answer. That they don’t need to do this anymore. That their fake relationship has run its course, and now that both Yuuri and Viktor have established themselves in their respective fields, they can do it alone.

“And once I’m back, you should go home,” Yuuri says. “Before London. To Saint Petersburg. You mentioned Makkachin earlier, so I think—”

“I’ll think about it,” Viktor says. “I need to be in Japan at the end of the month, anyway.”

Right. The NHK Trophy. The thing that Yuuri had been trying not to think about. Viktor’s under no obligation to come once he and Yuuri “break up”—Yuuri almost tells him that, but thinks the better of it. The idea of having Viktor there to support him is more reassuring than he’d care to admit.

“Thanks,” Yuuri blurts. He frowns at himself, not that Viktor could see it in the darkness. “For everything.”

“For you,” Viktor says, “anything.”

The sheets shift and Viktor wraps an arm around Yuuri, pulling him closer. For a moment, Yuuri entertains the thought that Viktor feels as bad about their fake relationship ending as he does. They’re only in Los Angeles for two more days. If nothing else, Yuuri is going to make the most of it. He wonders if Viktor will be doing that too. Maybe tomorrow he’ll finally let Viktor take him out to that fancy restaurant that’s been on the tip of his tongue every time Yuuri cuts him off to request takeout. Yeah. That sounds nice.

Yuuri is more tired than he thought—his eyes blink shut.

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as the flight touches down Yuuri takes his phone out of flight mode and checks the final results for the Cup of China. They’re taxiing, not flying, but they might as be struggling through turbulence for all the somersaults Yuuri’s stomach is doing.

Phichit finished in second place to Emil Nekola. Second place. Yuuri sighs, relieved beyond words. He doesn’t want to go to the Final without Phichit. With second place in his first meet of the season, Phichit still has a chance. And—Yuuri knows it’s wrong of him to take pleasure in other people’s failures, but Jean-Jacques Leroy finished fourth, behind Michele Crispino, which effectively makes the last spot in the Final anyone’s game. _Anyone_ could be Yuuri.

“Good news?” Viktor asks.

“I hope so,” Yuuri says. “Phichit finished second.”

Viktor tries to jump up in his seat—he’s sensibly stalled by the mandatory seatbelt. “We’ll have to throw a party for him when he gets back!”

“You don’t throw parties _for_ Phichit,” Yuuri says. “You let him throw parties for _you_.”

“Too bad.”

“Aren’t you going back to Russia soon?” Yuuri asks.

“I told you,” Viktor says, “after the NHK.”

Yuuri doesn’t press the point. If he and Viktor are going to “break up,” he wants to do it properly. Sever their physical ties as quickly and as sharply as possible. But Viktor seems intent on hanging around, throwing parties, following Yuuri to Japan a second time. They haven’t spoken about it since that night. Yuuri should bring it up so they can work out how exactly they’re going to do it; whether to make an announcement, or to let it fizzle out.

Maybe now’s not the time for that conversation.

He holds it in all the way through baggage claim and the taxi back to the apartment and up through the stairwell, lugging his suitcase behind him. He holds it in while Viktor uses the bathroom and holds it in while he pours himself a drink. He’s about to let it out when Viktor comes back from the bathroom but Viktor wraps his arms around Yuuri from behind, doesn’t even give Yuuri a chance to drink his glass of water, kisses him behind his ear and down his neck.

They’re meant to be breaking up. Yuuri says, “Not in the kitchen.”

This isn’t meant to happen anymore. Viktor takes Yuuri’s hand and leads him to the sofa, clambers on and pulls Yuuri on top of him. They just kiss, for a while. Which is nice, but—

Yuuri had done such a thorough job of compartmentalising their time in Los Angeles. That was where all those things happened between them, where they went further and further and, yes, it worked, it left Yuuri feeling good, which is exactly why it _has_ to end.

—but now he’s used to more.

 _Shake the habit_ , he thinks. He kisses Viktor harder.

It’s as easy as routine now, they way they fit together. Viktor’s hands stray with casual precision; his fingertips rake down Yuuri’s back with only the lightest pressure, but just enough. Yuuri moves almost involuntarily. His legs are either side of Viktor’s and as he moves it’s like flicking a switch, with the friction against his thighs as he moves, the heat that rushes through him when they come closer into contact. Viktor pulls him in so that their chests are pressed together, and Yuuri briefly wonders how much it costs to get a cheap upholstered sofa pressure-washed, or whatever it is they do to remove stains. He wonders what would happen if they just stayed here—for a minute, an hour, until Phichit returns on Tuesday—what would happen if they made this sofa their home and forgot about everything else, figure skating, modelling, other petty distractions.

He can’t let himself think like that. He can’t think at all when Viktor’s doing that thing he does with his tongue. So Yuuri files it away for later. Afterwards, he will remind Viktor they’re supposed to have stopped pretending. Afterwards.

 

* * *

 

 

Afterwards does not happen immediately.

 

* * *

 

 

“So tell me what I missed,” Phichit says.

Yuuri holds his tongue.

“Apart from Viktor’s spectacular flounce from the world of modelling,” Phichit amends. “Oh my god, Yuuri, were you _present_ for that?”

“Yeah, I was,” Yuuri says. “He’s not done with modelling forever. Just with that agency.”

Phichit hums, sticking his legs up on Yuuri’s lap. They’re sitting on the sofa; Phichit is still wearing his silver medal, has been since he got back that morning. “And that’s all you did? Go to the rink and watch Viktor pull faces?”

“Would it disappoint you if I said yes?” Yuuri asks.

“I’ll think about it,” Phichit says.

“We—” Yuuri begins.

“You, plural,” Phichit says. “You… ?”

“Never mind.” Yuuri shakes his head. “It’s not that interesting.”

But Phichit perks up immediately, scrambling up so that he’s perched on his knees, crowding Yuuri’s space. “Which means it totally is! Come on, Yuuri, spill.”

It takes an excruciating amount of time for Yuuri to decide whether he wants to tell Phichit or not. When he realises that, actually, it would be a disservice _not_ to tell Phichit, he can’t help but grin.

“I seduced him.”

Phichit squeaks like one of his hamsters, high-pitched and excitable. He pounces on Yuuri in a hug. “Details, Yuuri! Details! In Los Angeles? At your fancy hotel?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. He tries to stop smiling, but it’s impossible. “And on this sofa.”

“Yuuri, you minx!” Phichit squeezes Yuuri around the shoulders. “So are you guys, like, banging on the regular now?”

It’s such an embarrassing way to say it. Yuuri worms a hand free from Phichit’s grasp and covers his face. “We—no, not really. We’re not. Anyway, we’ve agreed. We’re going to stop pretending to date.”

Phichit goes still. “So you’re dating for real?”

“We’re just friends,” Yuuri says.

“Yuuri.” Phichit drops down and looks Yuuri dead in the eye. “You can’t tell me you seduced him in one breath then tell me you’re breaking up in the next.”

“I know it’s unconventional, but that’s just how it is,” Yuuri says. He wants to add something reassuring, like saying it hasn’t happened again since that time on the sofa, but that would be an egregious falsehood.

“This is an emotional rollercoaster,” Phichit says. “Should I be worried about you?”

“No,” Yuuri says, and he tries to sound reassuring. “Not at all. Phichit, really. Don’t worry.”

Phichit looks unconvinced, but he doesn’t press the issue.

 

* * *

 

 

Viktor is still sleeping in Yuuri’s bed, and Yuuri keeps meaning to say something, honestly, he does, but he’s at the rink all day and now Phichit is around at night and there isn’t the opportunity. The early morning is Yuuri’s best shot, because Viktor’s an early riser, so on Wednesday night Yuuri sets his alarm for eight and hopes that’s good enough.

It works like a charm—Thursday morning, his alarm goes off and he stirs to find Viktor sitting up in the bed, reading something on his phone.

“Morning,” Viktor says.

Yuuri pulls himself upright. “What’re you reading?”

“An article about myself,” Viktor says. He looks up from his phone and smiles so softly at Yuuri that all of Yuuri’s confidence rushes out of him like a drowner’s dying breath. “Why did you set your alarm?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Yuuri says, “about what we agreed to in LA.”

“What did we agree to in LA?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri’s heart stops. Viktor forgot that drunken night in Sochi, forgot following Yuuri on Instagram, forgot who he _was_ —of course Viktor forgot the drowsy conversation they had at one in the morning.

“We said…” Yuuri gulps. “We said we would stop pretending to date.”

“Oh!”

 _Oh, thank god_ , Yuuri thinks.

“ _That_ conversation,” Viktor says. “Did you want to say anything else? I thought that was all.”

Yuuri frowns. “I—I didn’t realise you were going to stick around, though. It makes sense for you to go back to Russia now, since we’re not…”

He waves a hand around. _You know_.

Viktor’s eyebrows knit together in confusion and he drops his phone into his lap, all of his attention focused straight ahead. “Since we’re not _what_ , Yuuri?”

“Since we’re not pretending to date,” Yuuri says.

“What does that have to do with me staying here or going back to Russia?” Viktor asks.

This must be a language thing. It wouldn’t be the first time. Yuuri sits up straighter, steels himself to make it clear, to say it without talking around it at all.

“You’re so well-known, Viktor. The media loves you—don’t argue, I’ve read that article you’ve got open.” His eyes flicker downwards, but he forces himself to look back up at Viktor. “And I’m… doing better. People know who I am. They know I’ve got a shot at the GPF again. That was what you said, wasn’t it? That we would only pretend to be a couple for as long as we needed to re-establish ourselves publicly. It’s helped, it really has. But now that we’ve stopped pretending, I think we need to do something to let people know it’s over.”

Yuuri balls his hands into fists and presses his knuckles down onto his knees. He’s breathing heavily. Forget skating in front of a crowd, this is the hardest thing he’s ever done. He knows they agreed to it, but—pushing away someone you love is never easy, no matter the circumstances.

For a very long time, Viktor doesn’t say anything at all. Yuuri wonders if he’s still processing it. It was quite a speech, after all. Then—

“Ah,” Viktor says, “I get it now.”

“So we’re on the same page?” Yuuri confirms. His voice comes out with a wobble to it.

“Absolutely,” Viktor says. “Same page. Yeah. I’m going to. I’m going to go for a run, okay?”

Yuuri gives him a puzzled look. “Sure. I don’t mind.”

“No, I know,” Viktor says.

Then he gets up and leaves without another word.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> worth noting i've made some minor edits earlier in the fic, mainly because my headcanon for yuuri's university degree changed (from design to computer science) based on me learning a little bit more about how the education system in america works. so it hasn't changed anything big, but just so you know.

Yuuri is going through the motions. He walks to the laundromat with bags full of washing and watches for every plane flying overhead and thinks, _that might be Viktor’s plane_ , heading east.

Heading home.

Two days have passed since Yuuri had properly ended it, and while he’s glad he did, he didn’t anticipate quite how hollow it would leave him feeling. He and Viktor had fallen into a pattern. Patterns are hard to break. The day after, Viktor had started sleeping on the couch again. The day after that, he announced that he had booked a ticket back to Russia, and would be leaving.

It’s for the best.

Yuuri drops the washing off at the laundromat and goes for a coffee nearby. Sometimes, when it’s Phichit’s turn to do the laundry, he’ll come all the way back home, because he likes the exercise. Yuuri has never been able to do that—if he was back home, he’d just feel like he had to be somewhere else.

Although, he’s feeling that now, sitting by the window at the local Starbucks and pressing his palms to the sides of his paper cup to warm them. He could be skating, practising for the NHK Trophy. And he needs to spend time with Celestino while he can. Phichit will be off again, far too soon, for the Trophée Éric Bompard, and Celestino with him. In the time between, Yuuri needs to perfect his short programme, polish his free skate, and get that quad flip from one time out of ten to eight, to nine, to ten.

While he’s daydreaming, his phone buzzes with a notification, and Yuuri almost falls backwards off his seat when he sees that it’s from twitter. He _never_ uses twitter. He follows a few other skaters and even fewer other skaters follow him, and as a result he keeps notifications switched off, except for direct messages.

It’s from Christophe: _what have you done._

That’s it. Nothing else. Yuuri can feel his coffee going cold with one hand while he holds his phone in the other, staring at his screen and occasionally flicking it with his thumb to keep it awake. The alarm he’d set earlier goes off, which means it’s time to head back to the laundromat, so he hastily sends Christophe a series of question marks, pockets his phone, and leaves.

Yuuri steadfastly ignores his phone while his washing is in the drier. He goes for a walk around the block, restless, but the block isn’t big enough to put his mind at ease—he’d have to pace it slowly, or walk around it about twenty times. He winds up back in the laundromat and sits on the provided bench, fidgeting with his phone. It must be almost the evening in Switzerland. Yuuri knows that Christophe must be in Switzerland because his next competition is the Trophée Éric Bompard, with Phichit.

He takes a deep breath, then another. He turns off notifications, all of them, for about five minutes—and then gives in and turns them back on again. Almost immediately, there’s a message.

 _never mind_.

So, of course, Yuuri does mind. He minds a lot.

He’s not stupid. He knows it has to do with Viktor. Christophe, especially, had been gratified to see them “together,” because of—

—because of the thing Yuuri has been steadfastly not thinking about. Now, it all comes rushing back to him. That night that he doesn’t remember. The way he took advantage of the situation by holding it back from Viktor, who couldn’t have remembered much of it either.

He messages Christophe back: _i’m sorry. there was a lot happening. i’ll tell you about it in person if we’re both at the gpf_.

Not the truth, though. He’ll think of something to tell Christophe, and in the meanwhile, he’ll make excuses. The one thing that _no-one_ can know is that it was never real in the first place.

Ah, and Yuuri’s family—he’ll have to tell them eventually. Perhaps it’s cruel of him to keep it to himself for now, but it’s not really an ending, is it? He and Viktor were never dating. It never began. Yuuri is content to let it fizzle out, privately, until the media stops speculating and just assumes it’s over. For people closer to him, he has to handle it a little differently.

As soon as he works out _how_.

Christophe doesn’t reply to his message.

 

* * *

 

When news of Viktor Nikiforov’s return to Russia reaches the press, only one interviewer thinks to ask him, “What about your relationship with Japanese figure skater Yuuri Katsuki?”

It’s a text interview, but Yuuri knows the exact easy smile that would grace Viktor’s face as he answered.

“We’re on a break,” was his response. “I would rather not talk about my personal life.”

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know what happened in Los Angeles,” Celestino says, “but I don’t want to see it affecting your skating any more than it already has.”

Yuuri knows he’s not at his peak. Maybe it’s because he knows he’s not at his peak that he’s been so desperately overcompensating, working too hard and burning out.

“I’ll work harder,” he says, just in case Celestino hasn’t worked it out too.

He has. “You know I don’t like clichés,” Celestino says, “but I really do need you to work smarter, not harder.”

Yuuri nods.

“Take this afternoon off,” Celestino adds.

The problem is, Yuuri has never been very good at doing what he’s told. Not for want of trying—it’s just not who he is. Deep down, he’s convinced that no-one knows what’s best for him the way he does. He has it all worked out. Sometimes, working harder is the smart thing to do.

So he feigns taking the afternoon off, which turns into actually taking the afternoon off, watching from the side of the rink while Phichit helps Celestino coach a junior class.

They’d talked, once, about what they’d do once they retired. Phichit had said he would be happy coaching, or maybe even putting on an ice show back in Thailand—but that was all a pipe dream, he amended, uncharacteristically nervous. Yuuri knows that if anyone was to pull off an ice show, it would be Phichit, but for some stupid reason he hadn’t said that aloud.

Then, Phichit had asked Yuuri what it was he wanted to do when he retired. Yuuri had never thought about it until that moment. He just assumed all figure skaters graduated from competition to professional skating—but then, Viktor didn’t.

Yuuri said, “I don’t know. Maybe get a job in an office,” and then he’d laughed, because of how absurd it was—because of how absurd it was that the moment he opened his mouth, he knew what his answer really was.

He wanted to go home, to Hasetsu, and sleep in every morning.

Even now, nothing seems more appealing.

When he’s had enough of watching, Yuuri gets up and leaves quietly. His promise was for the afternoon. The evening is anyone’s game. He catches the bus to the far side of town, to a suburb where he’s just another face in the crowd. There’s a studio he’s been to a couple of times, the place where he used to learn pole dancing. Out the front it says _Pole Fitness_ in big, reassuring letters, but there’s a general studio that they hire out. Yuuri is hoping it’s free.

He chats to the receptionist—embarrassingly, she recognises him—and manages to get some time in the general studio in half an hour. He wastes the time until then wandering the main street, grabbing dinner, passing a laundromat and thinking of Christophe’s message and how he still hasn’t got a reply.

Half an hour passes quickly. Yuuri heads back to the studio and there’s a whole room free for him, wood-panelled floors and mirrors covering every wall, lined with ballet bars. It’s like being back in Minako’s studio where he first learnt to dance, before he had even thought about taking skating lessons. There’s a dock on a table in the corner and Yuuri sticks his iPod onto it and puts _Volkslied_ on repeat, dancing his way through the step sequences until he’s sore all over.

It’s the best he’s felt in days.

 

* * *

 

 

And, god, Yuuri tries, he _really_ tries to quash the hope those four simple words instill in him, but he can’t help the way a surge of romantic dissent rears in his heart. _We’re on a break_ —and breaks can heal, given enough time.

He knows it’s stupid. Days later, a week later, he knows what he did was idiotic. He could have ended the relationship without ending their friendship too. He could just have… not ended the relationship. They were happy. They kissed, they slept together. That much was real.

They could’ve had a different conversation.

“Viktor,” Yuuri imagines himself saying. “Let’s stop pretending. Let’s make it official.”

What Viktor might have said to _that_ , Yuuri can’t imagine.

For better or for worse, though, they had to stop pretending. He hurt Viktor—he saw as much, evident in the way Viktor took it, when Yuuri made it as clear as he could—but Viktor had to know it was hurting Yuuri too. He _had_ to. He’d seen the posters; surely he would have guessed how Yuuri felt about him?

It’s messy. Yuuri’s not sure where his feelings start and where Viktor’s end.

Well, he wanted closure. He got closure.

 

* * *

 

 

“Yuuri, it’s midday.”

He rolls over, burying his head into his pillow. His bed feels alarmingly small. The blinds are drawn tight shut and he’s shoved a towel in the crack along the bottom—no light gets in except through the door, which is now open only a crack.

“Yuuri.”

“It’s Sunday,” Yuuri whines.

“That’s no excuse,” Phichit says. “Up. Now.”

“Sunday is my day off,” Yuuri says. Saturday was spent at the rink from sunrise to sundown, drilling jumps and perfecting every turn in his routines.

And working on his exhibition skate.

“Yeah, and it’s your turn to cook dinner tonight.” Phichit never really sounds irritated—this is about the closest he can get. “Don’t make me come in there.”

Yuuri groans. “Five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” Phichit concedes. “And if you’re not out by then, I’m dumping a glass of water on your head.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Yuuri says.

If Phichit replies, he loses it in the fog of falling back asleep, dozing off easily. But at least Phichit doesn’t douse him in cold water. He just comes in, sits down on the edge of Yuuri’s bed, and gently shakes his shoulders until he comes to.

“You okay?” Phichit asks.

Yuuri’s not sure, so he doesn’t answer.

By the time three o’clock rolls around he’s feeling better. He showers and plays a mindless FPS until he gets bored of that, too. He goes to Phichit’s room and knocks, even though the door is open.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go to the rink,” Yuuri says. He won’t allow himself any more days off.

 

* * *

 

It starts to snow on the day Phichit and Celestino leave for Bordeaux. Not the first snow of the season, but the first time it’s been heavy enough to fill in the breezeblocks in the stairwell. Yuuri celebrates by buying a heater for the apartment and a duvet for himself. He relocates to the couch every night and reads more novels than he has in his entire life.

The days pass, grey and repetitive. Yuuri goes to the rink and practices and no-one talks to him anymore, not even the younger skaters. They must notice that something’s changed—something _has_ changed. Yuuri is working harder than ever. He knows what it means to be a professional athlete, and this is different. Or maybe he never knew what it meant until now.

Seven out of ten times, he lands the quad flip.

It’s on another freezing day, sleet falling outside, when Yuuri gets a message from Phichit. He was about to doze off, lying on the couch with _Vile Bodies_ relegated to the floor, his eyes too tired for reading. Not too tired to check his phone, apparently. He opens the message.

_can i call you?_

Yuuri calls Phichit instead. “Hey.”

“Hey, oh my god, Yuuri, hey—how are you? What time is it there?”

“Late,” Yuuri says, shrugging for an effect that’s lost over the phone. “What’s up?”

“Sorry I didn’t get in touch last night,” Phichit says. “It was hectic after the short programme. Anyway, we’ve got the free skate this evening, so I’ve been preparing for that—Ciao Ciao says hi, by the way—but you would not _believe_ the company I kept last night!”

“Who?” Yuuri asks, because he knows Phichit likes to be prompted.

“Chris Giacometti. Yuuri—he is _something_ , isn’t he? We barely spoke at the GPF last year, but he specifically sought me out and took me to dinner—oh, don’t worry, he’s married, which I did get the full story about, by the way—very dramatic elopement to France, where it’s legal— _anyway_! He had some interesting stories about the GPF two years ago.”

 _Oh_ , Yuuri thinks. _This is how I die_.

“You never told me you could pole dance,” Phichit says, suddenly serious.

“It’s for fitness,” Yuuri says weakly.

“I know, I’ve seen your buff thighs,” Phichit says. “Hey, when I get back to Detroit, you should take me to some classes! I want to give it a try. Wait—that’s not what I’m meant to be talking to you about.”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “ _Meant_ to be?”

“Chris is disappointed in you,” Phichit says, “for, and I quote, ‘Breaking Viktor’s tiny Russian heart.’ He showed me these pictures of you and Viktor at the banquet— _god_ , Yuuri, I had no idea you could dance like that. And you looked—both of you—you looked so in love. Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“I forgot all about it,” Yuuri admits. “I found out from Christophe too, at Skate America.”

Phichit sucks in a breath. “Yuuri. Think very carefully about what I’m about to ask you: does Viktor remember that night? Does he know you don’t?”

“We’ve never talked about it,” Yuuri says. “I know he remembered me drunkenly asking him to be my coach—please don’t laugh, Phichit!—but I don’t think it stuck with him that well. He didn’t recognise me at the gala dinner in New York. Oh, but he said he knew who I was before we even met… so that…”

“Doesn’t make sense? Yeah.”

It _doesn’t_ make sense.

“Phichit, he had no idea who I was that evening,” Yuuri says. “He didn’t even remember following me on Instagram the day before.”

“How many times have you used this to justify something to yourself that you knew wasn’t quite right?” Phichit asks.

It catches Yuuri off-guard. He opens his mouth to say something but his throat feels stuck.

“I’m not trying to lay all the blame on you, or anything,” Phichit continues, “but Viktor was already drunk when you met him at the gala dinner. His actions that night don’t mean anything. And… you said you know for a fact he remembers part of the banquet two years ago, right?”

“Right,” Yuuri confirms. He thinks he might throw up.

“So—and stop me if I’m stepping out of line here—but is it possible that Viktor remembers that whole night? That he’s just as in love with you as he looks in all those photos Chris showed me?”

_That he has been for two years?_

“I don’t,” Yuuri says. His voice cracks. He blinks, and there are tears fogging his vision. “I don’t know.”

“It’s not a question that needs answering right away,” Phichit says kindly. “Whatever your deal was with Viktor, it wasn’t right to continue with the fake relationship thing for too much longer. Anyone would tell you that. But don’t think of it as the end of everything, either.”

Yuuri nods. He manages to hold back the tears. He’ll be fine.

“Besides,” Phichit says, “he told that interviewer you were just _on a break_. That means he’s totally still into you.”

Yuuri laughs, but it comes out sounding sad and pathetic. “There’s nothing conclusive to say he was ever _into_ me,” he says. “I won’t get my hopes up.”

“I’ll get my hopes up on your behalf,” Phichit says. “I don’t like seeing you so down, and I don’t think Chris likes seeing Viktor so—however he is. Broken-hearted. If you two don’t work it out I’ll get Chris to find a room and lock you both in it until you kiss and make up.”

The thought of kissing Viktor again sets a pang of something painful spreading across Yuuri’s chest. “Hey, Phichit, it’s getting late. Can we talk again tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, your time, I’ll have won gold,” Phichit says. “Okay. Go sleep off your lovesickness.”

“Good luck,” Yuuri says. “And—thank you.”

 

* * *

 

It’s still raining the next morning and Yuuri heads out wearing extra layers, his umbrella barely adequate as it gets blown about in the wind. He only slept about four hours last night but he’s not tired. He feels. Different.

At the bus shelter, he checks his phone and sees a message from Phichit. He got bronze, behind Seung-gil Lee and Christophe. It’s not a bad result, but it means that his place in the Final isn’t guaranteed. Everything is riding on the NHK Trophy, depending on whether the strongest contenders can place well enough to knock some of the others out of the running.

Somehow, one of those strong contenders is Yuuri.

The bus still isn’t there and it’s raining even harder. Yuuri opens his message history with Viktor. He hasn’t looked at it since they “broke up,” and he doesn’t waste time reading any of it now. He types a quick message, presses send, and then turns off all of his notifications and sets his phone to silent just in case he missed some.

_can we talk?_

Yuuri catches the bus—arrived at last—to the rink and he puts his earphones in, blocks out the world. He can land the quad flip eight times out of ten.

He keeps training.


	16. Chapter 16

Yuuri has his notebook out on the plane, tray table down. He has a page dedicated to each event in this year’s Grand Prix Series, and on each page a table of the scores. By his calculations, Seung-gil Lee, Yuri Plisetsky, and Otabek Altin are confirmed for the Final, all gold medal winners. The rest of the scores are close. It’s likely the fourth place will go to Christophe, and Phichit is well in the running for the fifth. The sixth place, then, would come down to Jean-Jacques Leroy, Michele Crispino, or Emil Nekola.

Or Yuuri.

If Yuuri gets bronze or lower, he’s out. He keeps silver at the forefront of his mind, gold as a pipe dream. Of the names on his sixth place list, only Emil is competing alongside him at the NHK Trophy. Emil has a gold medal under his belt, so if he beats Yuuri then that’s Yuuri beat. But if Yuuri gets silver with a dark horse taking gold, then the sixth place in the Final could be his.

People always say there’s a hometown advantage—they also talk about hometown nerves. Yuuri isn’t sure which of those will hit him first, although knowing him it’s likely to be the nerves. It doesn’t help that his flight is turbulent. When the plane lurches, his stomach churns. In the periods of calm, his head pulses with dizziness.

The plane lands at last and Yuuri spends fifteen minutes throwing up in the first bathroom he sees before going through customs. When he’s done, he sits on the bathroom floor and switches his phone to his Japanese SIM card. Almost immediately he gets a text from Minako.

_i’m in osaka for nhk trophy!! meet for dinner tonight?_

Yuuri replies, _sorry, still in tokyo. maybe tomorrow_.

The rest of the journey—on the train to Osaka, in a taxi to his hotel—passes in a haze. Yuuri sleeps for almost all of it and passes out the moment he gets into his hotel room, face down on the bed. When he wakes, the sun is setting and there’s a persistent crick in his back that he’ll need to work out by the time the competition starts.

Until then, he orders room service and tries to relax. If Viktor were here, he would get the fanciest dish on the menu, and a bottle of wine for good measure. They would be in a room with a king bed and a view. Yuuri is in a room with a single bed and a view of the carpark. If Viktor were here, he’d insist they take a selfie somewhere in the hotel and upload it to Instagram. Yuuri’s social media notifications are still turned off—although he’d allowed himself the concession of turning message notifications back on, in case Viktor replies—and he puts his phone face down on his bedside table so he can focus on watching TV while he eats.

If Viktor were here—but he _isn’t_ , and Yuuri doesn’t have time to be sad. He takes a hot bath and sleeps early.

 

* * *

 

Celestino arrives early the next day. “All this travel,” he complains, “takes a toll on you, at my age.”

Yuuri isn’t sure what to say to that. He aims for a sympathetic smile.

“Oh, it’s alright,” Celestino says. “Two of my students in the Grand Prix Series is nothing to be scoffed at. I’m always happy to travel for you two.”

“I’ll make you proud tomorrow,” Yuuri says.

Celestino nods. “I know.”

It’s the first day of official practice. Celestino gestures for Yuuri to take to the rink with the other skaters—and Yuuri does, eventually, but he’s been holding back because Kenjirou Minami is out there and staring at him. When Yuuri moves, Minami follows, ever his devoted fan.

Yuuri knows he’ll have to confront Minami eventually, maybe tell him good luck, but he’s putting it off. He doesn’t want to socialise with any of the other skaters at all—he’s only there to make it through the competition and do well enough to make the Final.

If only he was that lucky.

After the official practice ends, Minami comes straight for him. “Yuuri! Hey, Yuuri! How does it feel to be back in Japan?”

Yuuri shrugs. “It’s alright. I’m trying to think of it as just another competition.”

“Are you nervous? Excited?” Minami asks. “Ready to get defeated?”

 _That_ wakes Yuuri up. “Defeated?”

“By _me_ , of course,” Minami says, putting a hand to his chest. “I came third in the Rostelecom Cup, in case you’d forgotten! And you came fourth in Skate America. Which means I have a better chance of making it to the Grand Prix Final!”

It’s the kind of stupid mistake you only make when you’re drunk, or operating on so many levels of anxiety that there are some things your brain refuses to process. Yuuri _had_ forgotten. He goes blank, slowly recalibrating the score tables in his mind. Previously, he’d been counting Minami as a dark horse. Now… if Minami beats him, he’ll make it to the Grand Prix Final. His body feels like it’s about to shut down. Only willpower keeps him standing. False confidence. Real determination.

“Only if you score higher than me,” Yuuri says. He forces a smile. “You want to get to the Grand Prix Final? You’ll have to get past my two quad flips first.”

Minami’s eyes go wide and shiny and he clasps his hands together. “Two quad flips! Wow, Yuuri, you really are amazing! It would be a pleasure to be defeated by you!”

“Let’s both work hard,” Yuuri stammers, and makes his apologies, running off.

Two quad flips—why did he have to say that? Couldn’t he think of any better way to make himself sound more confident than he was? Two quad flips is impossible. It’s the kind of impossible that Viktor used to put into his programmes. And when Celestino finds out he’s going to be _furious_.

To make matters worse, that’s the end of official practice. If Yuuri wants to work another quad flip into his programme, he’ll have to find another rink, or wing it.

(Viktor would wing it.)

For now, he won’t think about it. His plan is to go straight from official practice to dinner with Minako. His head is still spinning—maybe seeing someone from home will be the best way to calm him down. As he’s leaving the stadium, though, Emil Nekola waves him down.

“Hey, you’re Yuuri Katsuki, right?”

Yuuri nods.

“A few of us are going out to dinner tonight,” Emil says. “Did you want to come with?”

Emil is taller than Yuuri and he has a full beard, but there’s something so _young_ about him. This is the face of the new guard of skaters, five years younger than Yuuri and already beginning to dominate. Yuuri, now, is part of the old guard. No amount of calling his return a “second debut” will change that.

“Ah, sorry,” Yuuri says, “I wanted to get an early night before the competition.”

“So this is how dedicated the pros are,” Emil says. “I hope I can work as hard as you one day, Yuuri.”

Taken aback, Yuuri takes a few moments to respond. “You’re already doing well. Good luck for tomorrow.”

“You too,” Emil says.

As they part ways, Yuuri smiles to himself. Maybe he’s not doing so badly after all.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri makes a detour to his hotel room, en route to dinner. He double-checks his notebook to make sure he’s not imagining things. There are the figures: his fourth place at Skate America had a higher overall total than Minami’s bronze at the Rostelecom Cup. Yuuri had forgotten that Minami had taken bronze, but his calculations had been correct. Surely Minami knew this too—which means Minami was trying to psyche him out. Yuuri could almost laugh, if it hadn’t given him such a heart attack at the time.

And now he’s promised Minami two quad flips.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know what to do, Minako,” Yuuri says. “I’ve put myself in such a position…”

“Sounds like you’ve put yourself in a lot of positions.” Minako pauses to take another sip of her drink. “Are you going to tell me exactly what’s going on between you and Viktor? I haven’t told your parents yet, but Mari and I are online, and all the Nishigoris too—what is ‘on a break’ supposed to mean?”

Yuuri feels his face heating up. “That’s not important. I have to fit a quad flip somewhere in my short programme tomorrow—and it can’t be in the free skate, because—”

“Yuuri. What happened between you and Viktor?”

Minako is persistent, and Yuuri always did give in easily. He sighs. “We’re on a break. That’s all.”

“But what does that _mean_?” Minako demands. “Is it permanent?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri admits. He won’t know until Viktor messages him back. If he does. “I told him to go back to Russia to spend some time with his dog.”

It sounds so stupid when he says it like that, leaving out all the messy bits in the middle. Minako clearly agrees with Yuuri’s self-assessment—she bangs a fist down on the table.

“You _what_?”

“It’s—” Yuuri says, floundering. “It’s more complicated than that. Sorry. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Minako relaxes back into her seat, but her eyes are still hard-set in frustration. “You’d better sort things out with that boy, Yuuri.”

“I want to,” Yuuri says.

He avoids a more certain statement, like _I will_ , because he doesn’t know if he has the willpower to carry through with more than he’s already done. He could message Viktor again, but then he’d be making a nuisance of himself, and besides, he’s probably the last person Viktor wants to hear from right now.

“Oh!” Minako exclaims, her whole mood shifting. “I almost forgot. Happy birthday—I know I’m a few days late, but I got you a present.”

She fishes in her handbag and produces a small box.

“You didn’t have to,” Yuuri says, but he takes the present anyway.

“Of course I had to,” Minako says. “Did you even celebrate your birthday this year?”

Yuuri is silent. His birthday had fallen while Phichit was on a plane back to Detroit, and soon after Phichit returned, Yuuri had left for Osaka. It wasn’t like he had any other friends to celebrate with. He’d gone to the rink and trained all day.

“I thought not,” Minako says. “Well, open it!”

Inside the box, Yuuri finds a tie. He runs his finger down it—it’s silk. Rich, golden silk, with small dots picked out in white embroidery thread. It matches his free skate costume.

(Viktor had hated Yuuri’s tie, the one he’d worn to the JSF press conference. Had he told Minako that?)

“Thank you,” Yuuri says. He manages a shaky smile. “I love it.”

“You can wear it to the banquet when you and your two quad flips win you the NHK Trophy,” Minako says.

“It’ll match my medal,” Yuuri says.

For the first time— _ever_ —the idea of winning gold doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

 

* * *

 

Before the short programme, Celestino tells Yuuri, “You’re in the perfect position to get a high technical score. Don’t let that get in the way of your performance component.”

“I won’t,” Yuuri says.

He hasn’t told Celestino that he’s planning to add a quad flip. Apart from anything else, he’s being irresponsible by even considering it. In hindsight, it’s clear that Minami was posturing, making it up for the sake of seeming better than he is. Yuuri should just forget it.

A voice at the back of his mind that sounds suspiciously like Viktor says, “But where would be the fun in that?”

Yuuri is more than prepared. It hits him when the music starts—he’s in a totally different place to every other time he’s stepped onto the ice. All those hours of work resonate in his bones and he feels the repercussions all the way to his fingertips. He doesn’t go onto autopilot, as he often does in competition. Instead, this is something like fight-or-flight mode, a rush of adrenaline and the accompanying push to take action.

He chooses to fight.

Aware of every moment down to the most minute detail, Yuuri’s scheduled quad toe loop draws closer. He imagines the air has turned solid, cleaved apart only by his motion through it. He doesn’t have time to look down and see the marks his blades are etching on the ice but he knows exactly how to redirect his path for the quad flip.

When he lands it, it feels like nothing else in the world. It feels like he’s flying. He has his eyes shut tight as he runs through the next movements, into the step sequence, and when he opens them again all he sees is gold.

All too soon, it’s over. It’s over and Yuuri’s holding his pose—or, he holds it for as long as he can, then sinks to his knees and makes an absolute fool of himself by sobbing like a baby.

It’s not a world record—that honour still belongs to Viktor, even after two years—but god, it’s close.

Yuuri’s unsteady back on solid ground, wobbling towards the kiss and cry on his skate guards and leaning on Celestino’s arm.

“I don’t know what to say,” Celestino says. “I don’t even know what to say to you.”

Yuuri winces. “Sorry.”

“A quad flip? At a time like that? And, Yuuri, you didn’t even falter? Did you practise that in LA?”

“I didn’t practise it.” When Celestino doesn’t react, Yuuri clarifies, “At all.”

“What am I going to do with you,” Celestino says to himself. He turns back to Yuuri and gives him a strict look. “No more exerting yourself until your free skate tomorrow, is that understood? You lie down for as long as you can and let your body rest. Two quad flips in two days is not unheard of, but you’d have to be…”

“Crazy?” Yuuri supplies.

“Exactly,” Celestino says. “You’d have to be crazy to try. But I also know saying that isn’t going to stop you from trying.”

They make it to the kiss and cry and Yuuri gratefully takes a seat on the bench. “It’s not,” he says.

“So it had better be perfect tomorrow,” Celestino says. “Break Nikiforov’s world record.”

Yuuri’s instinct is to say, _That’s impossible_. But after the way he skated today, he’s not so sure anymore. After he hears his score announced, he’s even less sure. The one thing Yuuri had always dreamed of was meeting Viktor on an even playing field, and once he’d screwed that up the dream was revised to being as good as Viktor. His score today is comparable to some of Viktor’s best.

And it’s funny, Yuuri thinks, that he probably wouldn’t have made it this far if he’d never met Viktor, if Viktor had stayed the spectral figure of worship that Yuuri had once considered him to be.

He sits and watches the rest of the short programmes with Emil and Leo, who’ve already skated too—Yuuri hadn’t noticed Leo was there at all, but instead of giving Leo an overwrought apology he says, “I was distracted yesterday. Sorry I didn’t say hi.”

“That’s okay,” Leo says. “Seeing how you skated today… I understand why you were so in the zone.”

Yuuri rubs the back of his head, embarrassed. “I only did it because yesterday I accidentally told Minami I would put a quad flip in.”

Leo raises an eyebrow. “Accidentally?”

“How do you _accidentally_ put a quad flip in your programme the night before you skate it?” Emil asks. “You’re amazing.”

Yuuri can’t meet either of their eyes. “N-no, I’m—”

“Anyway,” Leo cuts in, “I meant in general, not just the quad flip. You looked… I don’t know. Really in charge, you get me? More composed than usual. Not that you’re usually bad! You’re good—this was better.”

“I understand,” Yuuri says.

And in that moment, he does—his skating was better because _he’s_ better. His anxiety isn’t there to haunt him like some malignant spirit, cursing his thoughts and his actions. Somehow, despite dragging himself to a new low only a few weeks ago, he’s feeling. Better.

How much of that is down to Viktor?

“Ah, speak of the devil,” Emil says. “Minami’s starting now.”

Minami always has this flair that keeps the audience’s eyes trained on him. Emil and Leo comment at all the right moments, applaud with the crowd at the end, look genuinely sympathetic when Minami’s score turns out to be lower than theirs. Yuuri can’t focus as well as they can. He thinks about what it would be like if he had kept pretending with Viktor, if Viktor had come to Japan like he said he would, if, if, if.

After he’s done, Minami comes to sit with them, and he’s irrepressibly confident even when he talks about a disappointment. “Oh, there’s no way I’ll make it to the Final now,” he says, with not a hint of sadness.

“We’ll all be cheering for you tomorrow,” Yuuri says uselessly.

Minami grins. “And I’ll be cheering for you at the GPF!”

 

* * *

 

There’s still no reply from Viktor, but—

Back in the hotel that night, Yuuri turns all his notifications back on and braces himself as he opens Instagram.

—Viktor’s tagged him twice. The first is in reply to one of Phichit’s posts, which Yuuri is ashamed to have missed. The post says it was uploaded from Bordeaux but it’s a selfie that Phichit had taken of the two of them over two years ago, at their first Worlds together, captioned, _happy (early) birthday to my best friend in the whole wide world @ykatsuki ! see you soon!!! #throwback_. Yuuri hastily likes the post, and Viktor’s comment on it: _happy birthday @ykatsuki <3_

The second mention is in a post of Viktor’s own, from an hour ago. It’s a video, clearly ripped from a stranger’s YouTube channel, of Yuuri’s quad flip that evening.

_@ykatsuki continues to surprise me_

Yuuri wonders if Viktor hasn’t received his message. There’s something weirdly detached about communicating solely over Instagram. But then, Yuuri is beginning to realise that’s Viktor’s style—he doesn’t confront problems head-on. Otherwise he would’ve told Yuuri there was something wrong, not just left him to work it out on his own.

Not that Yuuri didn’t have that problem, too. He’s trying to fix that. Maybe it’s a matter of starting small. The last thing he does before turning off his phone and going to bed is reply to Viktor’s post.

_@v-nikiforov thank you. i don’t need to tell you who inspired it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> baby steps...


	17. Chapter 17

Winning doesn’t make Yuuri feel brilliant and ecstatic like he’d assumed it would. The world doesn’t reveal itself in a new light; there is no glorious chord of music emanating in rays from the sky. It just feels… right.

The last two days are fuzzy in his mind but he doesn’t stop to analyse it. In the stadium, in the middle of the podium, the glare of the ice and the flash of the cameras are blinding, the cheers deafening. It’s everything he’s ever wanted. And around his neck, a gold medal. Gold, in a Grand Prix event, and with it, a place in the Final.

Yuuri doesn’t need his notebook to crunch the numbers.

As the cheers die down, Yuuri steps down from the podium and rinkside, where his jacket is waiting with Celestino. Yuuri’s costume is more mesh than real fabric—he’s shivering from the cold, his body readjusting to being relatively stationary. And his phone is in his jacket pocket. He has an obligation to his Instagram followers.

“Emil! Leo!”

Leo is the first to respond. “Are you finally gonna come out with us tonight?”

“Maybe,” Yuuri says. Getting drunk is kind of appealing right now. But first… “Can I, uh, get a selfie with you two?”

“The two finalists, and me,” Leo says, smiling sadly.

Yuuri bites his lip. “You skated so well today, Leo. I wouldn’t want a photo without you in it.”

It’s the right thing to say. Leo’s grin turns genuine and he yanks Emil to Yuuri’s side. Emil throws an arm around Yuuri and a peace sign to the camera. He’s tall enough that he doesn’t need to hold up his medal for it to be in frame.

“So are you going to come out tonight?” Emil asks, once Yuuri’s taken the photo.

“I—”

Yuuri almost says yes. Then, from the corner of his eye, he sees Minako rushing towards him. She’s not the only person he needs to talk to. He looks back to Emil and Leo.

“Sorry. I need to rest. I have to get up early to practice my skate for the exhibition.”

Emil slumps forward, sighing. “So dedicated. I’m jealous.”

“I’m a little intimidated,” Leo says, but he laughs. “Okay. But you’re coming out tomorrow night.”

“Okay,” Yuuri says. “This time, I promise.”

The others leave him just as Minako reaches him, throwing her arms around him in a tearful hug. “Yuuri! Yuuri, I’m still in shock! I’m so proud—just been on the phone to Hiroko—we’re all so _proud_ —”

Yuuri hasn’t cried yet, but now he comes close.

“I haven’t called home,” he says. “I’m going to, I just—”

“Take your time,” Minako says. “You’ve done so, so well. Of course, we all knew you could do it, but seeing it happen is something else!” She pulls back, resting her hands on Yuuri’s shoulders. “Our hometown hero. Japan’s returning ace—isn’t that it?”

“That’s it,” Yuuri says, ducking his head. He’s never felt that he deserved that title until now

“Yuuri, I hate to interrupt—”

It’s Celestino, still a little teary himself.

“—but before you head off, we should coordinate a time to go over your exhibition routine.” He pauses, frowning. “Are you still set on doing— _that_?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Yuuri says. “I, uh—I asked Minako to bring one of my old costumes for me to wear, just in case.”

“Hi, Yuuri’s coach,” Minako says, introducing herself with a wave. “I’m Yuuri’s old ballet teacher.”

Celestino shakes her hand. “He’s told me a lot about you.”

As they get acquainted, Yuuri uploads his selfie to Instagram—Phichit would be proud—and checks his notifications. There’s a deluge of posts, videos and screenshots of videos, of his free skate. Yuuri likes all the ones posted by people he knows—his personal favourite is from Minami, _defeated by my idol again!!_ and three crying emojis—and ignores the others. There’s nothing new from Viktor.

“Dinner, Yuuri?”

Minako’s voice snaps him back to reality.

Celestino adds, “Minako says there’s a good bar nearby.”

“You go ahead,” Yuuri says. “I’m… exhausted, actually.”

“I understand,” Minako says, giving him a sympathetic look. “But I’m taking you out tomorrow night—promise?”

“Promise.”

A second later, it dawns on Yuuri that he’s double-booked. He’s about to say something, but Minako and Celestino are already gone, chatting away like old friends.

Well. He’ll work it out closer to the time.

 

* * *

 

The video call rings a few times before Phichit picks up. He flickers onto the screen still in his pyjamas, using his laptop from bed. It’s overcast outside but there’s a glare lighting up the room. Yuuri has never missed Detroit before this moment.

“Hey, Yuuri! Good morning—or should I say goodnight, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s getting late here,” Yuuri says. Very late. Past midnight late. But he waited until he knew Phichit would be awake. He’ll be exhausted when he practices for his exhibition skate tomorrow morning, but he’ll live.

“Congratulations,” Phichit says. “I watched your free skate already, of course. Yuuri—I’ve never seen anything like that! You really deserve that gold.”

“Phichit—”

“No, don’t say anything yet. I’m not done.”

Yuuri nods, silent.

“I won’t be angry at you for getting into the Final,” Phichit continues, “so don’t you dare try to apologise. I won’t pretend I’m not sad I missed out, but you’re there in my stead, and that’s all I could ask for.”

“I wanted to see Barcelona with you,” Yuuri says. He won’t try to apologise.

“There’ll be other Grand Prix Finals in other exciting cities,” Phichit says. “And Seoul for Four Continents! I get the feeling you’re just getting started, huh? And Chris told me he’s thinking of retiring next year, so that’s some of the competition out of the way.”

That bit of news stuns Yuuri more than he could’ve expected. He can’t imagine a season without Christophe—even before they were acquainted, Christophe had always been there, one of the competitors closest to Yuuri in age.

“Hey.” Phichit taps a finger against his camera on the other end. “Still with me?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”

Phichit nods. “It’s finally happening, huh?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” Yuuri admits. “I’m one of the top older skaters… there’s sort of, an expectation, you know?”

“I get you,” Phichit says. “You’re worried you won’t do as well as people expect of you. That you might come sixth in the GPF again.”

“Right.”

“You know, I have the solution to all your worries,” Phichit says, suddenly animated. He shifts in the frame and his phone comes into view—Yuuri wonders how long he’s been multitasking. “Check Insta, like, right now.”

When it comes to Phichit and Instagram, Yuuri’s learnt to do as he’s told. He doesn’t need to open the app to see the notification: **v-nikiforov** _has tagged you in a post_.

“It’s just my username,” Yuuri says. “And a lot of exclamation marks.”

“I think he’s trying to congratulate you, or something,” Phichit says, one wry eyebrow raised.

Yuuri forces his expression to stay neutral. “This isn’t funny, Phichit. I messaged him on LINE a week ago and he still hasn’t replied, but he keeps tagging me on Instagram. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means he probably uninstalled LINE, since he only had it for you,” Phichit says, typing something on his phone. “Don’t let it get you down. People act rashly after break-ups.”

“It wasn’t really a break-up,” Yuuri says, “since we weren’t going out.”

“Are you still convinced he doesn’t like you that way?” Phichit sighs. “Check your phone again.”

Yuuri obliges, and minimises the video call to open the Instagram app properly. There are two new replies on Viktor’s post.

 **phichit+chu** _isn’t he the best??? #teamyuuri_

 **v-nikiforov** _he is! <3 <3 <3 #teamyuuri_

“Oh,” Yuuri says. It couldn’t be any clearer, and Yuuri wonders why it was never so clear before. His fingers go slack and he lets his phone drop into his lap. “We’re—he said we were on a break. People are going to think we’re still—”

“Yeah, because he _clearly_ still has feelings for you,” Phichit says. He rolls his eyes. “Come on, Yuuri.”

“I dumped him,” Yuuri says, horrified at himself. “Oh god, Phichit, I was dating my childhood crush and I _dumped_ him. When I said we should stop pretending, he must have thought—oh _god_.”

“No panic attacks this early in the morning,” Phichit says. “Don’t think about it. Just make it right.”

_Don’t think about it._

“I’m going to go to bed,” Yuuri says, “and think about it in the morning.”

“Good,” Phichit says. “See you soon!”

When they hang up the call, Yuuri doesn’t go to bed right away. He makes a follow-up post on Instagram, thanking everyone who’s supported him, and makes sure to tag Viktor. Then, he sends Viktor a direct message: _did you get my message on line? i want to talk to you. i’m really sorry, viktor._

 

* * *

 

Yuuri wakes up the next morning to a reply that couldn’t have come much longer after he went to sleep the night before. There’s no beating around the bush and no mention of the real issue at hand—just Viktor, being his usual self.

_i want to talk to you too!! i miss you yuuri ((( can we call tomorrow night, after your exhibition skate?_

The answer is yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

The costume that Yuuri’s using for his exhibition skate is from five years ago, so he’s hoping no-one will notice he’s reusing it. It’s a simple outfit, plain black trousers and a white shirt, with a blue jacket decorated with gold filigrees—and the jacket isn’t the aggressive blue of some of his later costumes, from the period when he had settled on blue as his colour and he would wear nothing else. It’s more of a navy, a colour more mature than he had been when he’d worn it. Putting it on now feels like a coronation, the final fitting assumption of a role.

Not that this will be Yuuri’s last exhibition skate. Hopefully.

He filters out the announcements until his name is called. Then, he filters out everything except the music.

This is a routine he knows intimately, like an old friend. This is the routine he had skated for Yuuko when he returned to Hasetsu after a five-year absence. This is the routine that kept him sane in the last semester of his degree, when he wasn’t skating competitively anymore and the only thing he could do outside of study was go to the rink, deserted, early in the morning. No step sequence has ever matched the music more perfectly, no jump composition had better timing. This is a routine that Yuuri _loves_.

“This is gold medal winner Yuuri Katsuki,” says the announcer, “skating to _Stay Close To Me_ , a programme choreographed and first performed by five-time world champion Viktor Nikiforov.”

Yuuri doesn’t have the presence of mind to be embarrassed about skating his ex-fake-boyfriend’s routine as his exhibition piece without asking first. He thinks perhaps he ought to be, but the feeling never comes. All that comes is familiarity, in waves that sweep him away, in a gust of wind to guide his path.

If Viktor is watching—Yuuri has no way of knowing if Viktor is watching—what would he be thinking?

There’s no time for that thought either. Yuuri is distracted by landing the quad flip. It’s been happening nine times out of ten in practice. It happens now, flawlessly. As Yuuri lands he imagines the headlines: _Three quadruple flips in three days—is Yuuri Katsuki crazy?_

Probably. And this is only the start, only his debut. He has a lot more to do before he can make things right again.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri’s phone is overheating. He has so many notifications on Instagram that he almost uninstalls the app—almost, but catches himself, because he knows he’ll regret it. (That, or Phichit will make him regret it.) There are texts from Minako and Mari, messages from every other international acquaintance.

He sits in the corner of his hotel room by the only power point, phone charging. Emil, Leo, and Minami want him to come out for dinner. Celestino wants to take him to a restaurant. Minako wants to take him drinking, and she wants Celestino to come too. Yuuri has told all of them he’ll be along in a while, he just has to freshen up first, take a shower, relax—

His phone rings with a video call.

Deep breaths. This doesn’t need to be scary.

Yuuri presses answer. “Hi, Viktor.”

The first thing that Yuuri notices is that Viktor has been crying. Correction—he _is_ crying, he just manages to look as effortlessly beautiful as usual while doing it. There are little tells, though. Red eyes, puffy cheeks. Yuuri takes in the sight for slightly too long before his panic instincts kick in.

“Viktor? Are you—”

“I’m,” Viktor says, “I’m fine— _Yuuri_ , you—”

And then, it all comes out at once.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t realise that we were—until it was too late. We never talked about it so I thought we were still pretending and that everything we were doing didn’t mean anything. Looking back on it, I realise what a—what a stupid assumption that was to make. But Viktor—” Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut, and when he opens them everything is more blurry than before. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I thought it was for the best, for both of us. I know it was wrong of me, but—I really like you, and I can’t help but think that maybe you feel the same… ?”

“Yuuri.”

Viktor’s tone is wondering, but he pauses for long enough that Yuuri starts to worry. “Viktor—”

“Yuuri, you skated _Stay Close To Me_ ,” Viktor says.

It all clicks into place. Viktor’s not upset. He’s _ecstatic_. When Yuuri doesn’t respond, Viktor breaks into a grin, tears still leaking from his eyes. Between sobs, he laughs.

“I had no idea,” Viktor continues. “Your quad flip—it was perfect. I’ve never seen anything half so beautiful.”

“It’s my favourite of your routines,” Yuuri admits. “I wanted to do it justice.”

“You did. Yuuri, you did it better than I ever did.”

“That doesn’t mean you forgive me, does it?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor must be incapable of seriousness. He shrugs. “I suppose I’m mad at you. I _was_ mad. I was really mad. But let’s not talk about that now! I want to talk about your skating. How long had you been practising that?”

Yuuri doesn’t particularly want to admit to it, but this is Viktor, and he’s never going to hold anything back from Viktor ever again. “Ah, about a year and a half,” he says.

“Since you retired,” Viktor says.

“Yeah.” Yuuri looks down at his hands, knuckles turning white as he grips his phone. “I told you—your skating always meant to so much to me.”

Viktor hums. “I wish I could’ve seen it in person. You’ll just have to get another gold at the GPF!”

It’s a moment before the implications sink in. “You’re coming to the Final?”

“I told Chris I was mad at you, but he booked a ticket for me anyway. He said he wasn’t going to let me off the hook.”

“So you _are_ mad at me.” Yuuri’s almost relieved.

“Do we need to talk about this right now?” Viktor asks. “I’m too distracted. Ah, you can’t see, but I have your exhibition skate playing on repeat in another window. Sound off, of course, so we can talk.”

“If you rather be doing something else, we can stop talking,” Yuuri says, irritated.

Viktor softens, smiling. “Ah, Yuuri. I really did miss you.”

He’s skirting around the issue. Yuuri might be shortsighted, but he can see the elephant in the room as big as a woolly mammoth, and Viktor has absolutely no excuse for ignoring it. But—would it be so bad if Yuuri just acted as though everything was fine? Just for now?

“I missed you too,” he says. “Since you left, I haven’t done much else except training.”

“It shows,” Viktor says.

Yuuri tries not to let it get to his head. “What about you? Have you… done anything? I mean—”

“Have I done anything?” Viktor repeats, laughing. “I’ve been sleeping a lot. Catching up with Makkachin. It’s been very boring; let’s not talk about me.”

“What about the contract in London?”

Viktor’s face pauses in the middle of moving from one expression to another. It would be comical if it wasn’t so sudden and so telling.

“I turned it down,” he says, “some time before we—well, anyway, it’s not what I needed at this stage in my life! London is a whole new place, and I don’t need to learn British as well as American!”

He’s joking, but Yuuri’s seen Viktor spell _colour_ and _favourite_ and knows that he learnt to speak British English. And there’s subtext there. _He did this for me_ , Yuuri thinks. How is he meant to respond to that?

They talk for a little while longer. Yuuri grows progressively more uncomfortable, though, with every passing minute. They’re not talking about what they need to talk about, and the idea of Viktor putting his life on hold for Yuuri is insidious, working its way into Yuuri’s brain, hanging over the conversation. All Viktor wants to talk about is figure skating, and for once in his life, Yuuri’s had enough for figure skating for the moment.

And—he’d told Viktor he _liked_ him, and Viktor didn’t say anything. Yuuri knows him well enough by now to read between the lines, but that’s not the same as proper closure.

It’s only when their call ends that Yuuri checks the time. He’s missed both of his dinner engagements.

The last thing he does before switching off his phone and climbing into bed is check Instagram again. There’s a new post from Viktor—something to generate another onslaught of notifications—which is a screenshot of Yuuri bowing at the end of _Stay Close To Me_.

_speechless. a performance beyond words from my bf @ykatsuki_

Well, Yuuri thinks, add that to the list of things they need to talk about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a bit of a story to the costume yuuri wears in his exhibition skate here. it's the costume from the cover of the OST CD, which someone created a colour version of, and for one wonderful afternoon we all thought it was canon and that yuuri would be wearing it to pair skate _stay close to me_ with viktor. which, well, close enough. i wanted to pay homage to that, to give a nod to fanon as much as i'm referencing canon with having yuuri skate this routine. you can find a reference for the costume [here](https://hetteh-spegetteh.tumblr.com/post/154752307245/real-question-did-i-miss-something-major). in a few years this will be prime fandom archaeology.
> 
> (and, um, sorry i haven't drawn the other costumes yet. i will try to do that before the fic is over. which, you may have noticed, is soon—i updated the final chapter count to reflect the fact that i've planned out all the pacing and, wow, we're nearly there.)


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um, not to get all emotional, but thank you for 1,000+ kudos, thank you all so, so much. this fic has been my stress release and my hobby since yoi was still airing and given it's almost over i hope i'm not being too premature in thanking all of you for coming along for the ride.
> 
> now for some different emotions...

“No more avoiding it,” Yuuri says to himself, dial tone ringing in his ear. “This time, we’re going to talk about it _properl_ —”

The ringing stops abruptly. “Hi, Yuuri!”

Flustered, Yuuri stalls and nearly trips over his suitcase, dragging behind him out of the terminal. “Viktor! I was hoping we could—”

“Are you back in Detroit already?” Viktor interrupts.

“Ah, yeah. I’m just leaving the airport, actually.”

“Okay, now go home and rest,” Viktor says. “What are you doing on the phone? You should be in bed by now.”

Strangely, though, Yuuri doesn’t feel tired. He managed to get enough sleep on the plane—maybe he’d worn himself out enough that his body decided it’d had enough. Now, he relishes being able to stretch and walk around. If it wasn’t such a long way he’d walk all the way home.

“I was hoping we could talk about something, actually,” Yuuri says. “Your Instagram post—”

“Which one?”

 _Which one_ is unfortunately a valid question. Viktor hasn’t exactly been holding back with the effusive praise. There are comments as well as posts, mostly on Phichit’s uploads, and all of them send one very clear message: that Yuuri and Viktor are no longer _on a break_.

“All of them,” Yuuri says, a little feebly. “Viktor, it’s like we’re—”

As the words are on the tip of his tongue, it hits him. He stops dead in the middle of a pedestrian concourse.

“—it’s like we’re pretending to be dating again.”

Viktor goes quiet. “What do you mean?”

“We’re, you know,” Yuuri says, “not, uh… Viktor, I broke up with you. I didn’t mean to, but that’s effectively what I did.”

“Are you going to take it back?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri narrows his eyes. “Are you asking me out?”

“I—” Viktor cuts himself off. Yuuri can practically hear him frowning. “You’re right. We need to talk about it.”

“Thank god,” Yuuri says, relieved. “So—”

“But not right now!” Viktor amends. “I was just about to go to bed when you called. Can we do this tomorrow morning? That’ll be night, your time.”

“If we keep putting it off, it’ll never happen,” Yuuri says. He sighs. “Okay, tonight. I’ll Skype you.”

“Okay,” Viktor says.

There’s a pause—neither of them are willing to hang up. Viktor is the one to break the silence.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Yuuri says. That’s not a lie. “We’ll talk again soon.”

“Soon,” Viktor agrees.

 

* * *

 

“There’s the golden boy!”

Phichit flings open the door to the apartment and throws his arms wide; Yuuri is halfway up the last flight of stairs and hauling his suitcase laboriously with each step.

“Hey, Phichit,” Yuuri says. “I hope this is all the welcome party I’m getting. I’m exhausted.”

“This, my friend, is just the beginning,” Phichit says. “I’m taking you and your gold medal out for lunch. Wherever you want to go, my treat. Then we’re getting totally drunk—I’m talking day drunk—and celebrating some more.”

“We don’t have to do any of that,” Yuuri says.

Phichit looks dubious. “What would we do instead?”

“Have a nap,” Yuuri suggests.

“Been there, done that,” Phichit says. “Come on. You need to live a little. Get your mind off Viktor—and don’t give me that look, I know you’ve been thinking about him.”

Yuuri makes it to the top of the stairs and props his suitcase against the doorframe. “I spoke to him, actually.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Not in the stairwell,” Yuuri says. Sound carries. He pulls out the handle of his suitcase so he can drag it inside.

“Well, you need to give me all the gossip,” Phichit says. “Don’t hold back!”

“There’s not much to say.” Yuuri shrugs, shuts the door behind him. “He was so excited that I skated _Stay Close To Me_ , and a little annoyed I didn’t tell him, I think. We—we talked about _us_ , a little, but not enough to make any decisions. We’re going to talk again tonight.”

“I take back what I said about getting drunk,” Phichit says. “I won’t let you talk to him anything less than stone cold sober.”

“That’s fair,” Yuuri says. He isn’t in the mood for drinking anyway.

Inside the apartment, Yuuri doesn’t bother to unpack. He flops down on the couch and stretches his legs out. It’s good to be back. Rainy, snowy Detroit welcomes him unconditionally.

“Oh, that’s right,” Phichit calls from the kitchen, “he was pretty unambiguous about where the two of you stand on Insta. So I take it all is well?”

“All is not well,” Yuuri says. “All is confusing. Viktor hasn’t said a word about the Instagram thing. I don’t know where we stand. I don’t know if we’re standing at all.”

Their conversation earlier did feel hopeful, but Yuuri has learnt not to get his hopes up.

Phichit comes back with two glasses of water, rolling his eyes. “I swear, you’re both hopeless.”

Yuuri takes the water and drinks it all in a few large gulps. He’s always dehydrated after flying, and he invariably forgets to do anything about it. He’s grateful for a flatmate like Phichit. He glances sideways; Phichit seems cheerful, but Yuuri is still worried.

His win at the NHK Trophy did not break a world record, although it came close. It did secure him a spot in the Grand Prix Final, but at the expense of other strong skaters. Emil’s silver earnt him the sixth spot, and between the two of them they knocked the other contenders out of the way. Phichit, Minami, Leroy, and Crispino—all of them missing out by just a fraction. All that disappointment on Yuuri’s shoulders.

“You know what,” he says, “I don’t need to nap. Let’s go out for lunch.”

“Yeah?” Phichit perks up, scooting to sit on the edge of the couch cushion, half falling onto the floor. “Where do you want to go?”

Yuuri shrugs. “You decide. I’ll be happy so long as it’s not plane food.”

“That, I can guarantee,” Phichit says. He gets to his feet. “Go shower! If you’re lucky, I’ll have picked a place by the time you’re done.”

 

* * *

 

They end up getting hot pot. Yuuri eats way more than he should and staggers out of the restaurant with the feeling that in one hour he’s put on enough weight to lead to certain failure at the Grand Prix Final. That only means he’ll need to work harder.

“Phichit,” he says, “let’s go to the rink. I want to practice.”

“All work and no play,” Phichit says, clicking his tongue. “Okay. I’m sure there’ll be loads of adoring fans there to welcome you home—”

“Oh, no—”

“—asking for your autograph, saying you’re their inspiration—”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Yuuri says. “I don’t want to go to the rink anymore.”

“Too late!” Phichit says gleefully. He links his arm through Yuuri’s. “We’re not far away. Worst comes to worst, you can be a don’t-meet-your-idols idol and ignore your fans while you go skate. They’ll love it. A personal audience with Yuuri Katsuki!”

Yuuri sighs. He lets Phichit drag him along because, when it comes down to it, he’s made his bed and he’s damn well going to lie in it. And at the end of the day, Yuuri gets to skate either way. That’s all he really wants to do.

The rink is quiet when they make it there. Most likely no-one can be bothered to make the trip in this weather. Yuuri wouldn’t blame them—the rain has already permeated his outer layers and his glasses are speckled with water. He doesn’t care, though. He feels real and grounded and incredible. And the Grand Prix Final is in under two weeks. He needs to practice now, more than ever.

“It doesn’t quite compare to the world stage,” Phichit says. “Still.”

“It’s home,” Yuuri says.

Phichit nods. “Yeah.”

Yuuri’s thought about it, of course—leaving Detroit. He knows he’ll have to, eventually. His competitive skating career will reach its natural conclusion, and he’ll move on. There are bad memories at this rink, more than enough to outweigh the good ones, but there’s something about it.

And a few younger skaters do approach Yuuri for autographs. Members of the general public too. If they’re fans enough to be at the rink on a rainy day, they’re fans enough to know who he is. He obliges. He shows a ten-year-old girl how to do a simple single loop.

Even though he could afford to take some time off, Phichit skates too. Yuuri doesn’t say it aloud, but he’s glad. They won’t be going to the GPF together, but they’ll always have this.

The attention does get a bit much, but it doesn’t weigh on Yuuri as much as it usually does. These things tend to get easier with time. Yuuri’s mind flashes to his promise with Viktor, that they would call each other in a few hours. He hopes that’s something that’ll get easier, too.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri is buzzing with nervous anticipation when he boots up his laptop. It’s late. Phichit is already asleep in the other room—Yuuri had made sure of that first. His fingers tremble on the touchpad as he presses _call_.

This is it.

Viktor picks up almost immediately. He reaches out a hand to adjust the tilt of his laptop, and when he pulls it back Yuuri can see his face clearer than he has in days. Yuuri almost cries then and there. Almost. He holds himself together for the sake of saying everything he wants to say, everything he hasn’t said yet.

“No backing out this time,” he tells Viktor.

“Good morning to you too,” Viktor says, winking.

Yuuri manages a smile. “Do you want to talk first, or will you let me do my apology properly this time?”

“You’ve already apologised,” Viktor says. “Let me talk.”

“It wasn’t a very good apology,” Yuuri says, but he doesn’t go on. He sits back in his chair, the only way he can give Viktor space when there’s a screen between them.

Viktor, for his part, leans forward, his fingers tented. “Here’s the problem,” he says. “I’m not very… good… at this. Feelings, relationships—well, you know. I’ve never done it before. And we were doing things that I’d—that I had also never done before. I didn’t think to talk about it. I just—thought we were on the same page.”

“I should’ve mentioned it sooner,” Yuuri says. “And I should have made it a discussion, not a decision.”

“Yes, that was very cruel of you,” Viktor says, “to go breaking my heart like that.”

Yuuri laughs, self-conscious. “Phichit told me that Christophe told him I’d, uh, broken your heart. That’s what made me realise that you—that maybe your feelings were the same as mine.”

“Really?” Viktor looks irritated, but also a bit amused. “It wasn’t all those times we kissed? Or when we—”

“I know I’m stupid about these things,” Yuuri says, well and truly called out, “but I’ve had even less experience than you!”

“For a first relationship, we really shouldn’t have been so ambitious,” Viktor says.

Yuuri’s heart catches on one of the words in that sentence. “So is this still…”

Viktor gives him such a warm smile that Yuuri could melt beneath it. “I want to try again, if you do.”

“You didn’t really give me much choice in the matter,” Yuuri says. “You called me your ‘bf’ on Instagram.”

“Public impressions are every bit as important as private ones sometimes,” Viktor says, like he’s delivering a lecture. “I suggested this in the first place because it would mean carrying on with what the media expected, and when you—well, I didn’t know what to do, so I decided we would just pretend nothing happened. You don’t really use Instagram, so it wasn’t a problem.”

“Right.” Yuuri rests his chin in his hand, but jerks up again a second later. “Wait—that’s the one thing I haven’t worked out yet. You didn’t remember following me the day before and you didn’t recognise me at the gala dinner, but a while ago you told me you’ve known who I was for _years_. And then there was the GPF banquet two years ago…”

“Ah,” Viktor says. “I may have lied a bit at that party, about not knowing who you—”

He pauses. Yuuri wishes he could frame the look of surprise on Viktor’s face.

“ _Yuuri_. You remember the banquet?”

Before Viktor can say anything, Yuuri waves his hands in front of his webcam. “N-not as such,” he says. “But I heard you and Celestino talking about me asking you to be my coach, so I guessed something must have happened… and then Christophe told me the full story at Skate America. I thought you didn’t remember beyond the coaching thing, but—”

“ _Obviously_ I remembered,” Viktor says. “I fell in love that night, Yuuri.”

“With me?” Yuuri asks, before he can help himself. “I mean—of course with—ah, I don’t want to say it.”

“I fell in love with you,” Viktor says. He says it like it’s the easiest thing to admit in the whole world. “I’m still in love with you, if you—if you’ll have me.”

 _Now_ Yuuri cries. Unbidden, tears prick at the corners of his vision. “Viktor, I’ve been in love with you since I was ten years old and you won the Junior World Championship. Of _course_ I’ll—”

He can’t finish the sentence. A sob catches at his throat and he covers his face, like that’ll make any difference; wipes his eyes, blows his nose.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“You know that feeling,” Viktor says, “when you’re good at something, and you _know_ you’re good at it, but every time you do it you feel like a fraud?”

Yuuri rubs at his eyes, still teary. “Viktor, that’s called impostor syndrome. It’s—well, I’ve never studied psychology, but it’s more than just a bad feeling.”

And _that’s_ why Yuuri’s been feeling so good about his skating lately—because he hasn’t felt like an impostor in a long time. He knows how much hard work he’s done, and he’s worked that hard before, but it’s never given him as much of a solid foundation. So it must be his confidence, which comes down to Viktor. Like everything else.

Viktor is silent for a very long while before he speaks again.

“I guess I thought… even when we were pretending to go out, I never felt good enough for you. That sooner or later, you’d realise I was useless and embarrassing and washed up and you would break it off. Yes, I was mad, but it made sense—I thought that was what happened. Not that—”

“That I’m just terrible at communicating?” Yuuri says. “Viktor, you’re none of those things. Maybe you’re a little useless, but no more than I am.”

He pauses, lets it sink in. Viktor looks lost, and in that moment Yuuri wants nothing more than to take his hand and show him the way.

“And if I can get over that bad feeling and win a gold medal, then you can get over it and be my boyfriend. For real, this time.”

 

* * *

 

Phichit comes to the airport to see Yuuri off, keeping him company on public transport and helping him lug his suitcase up flights of stairs. Yuuri is grateful beyond words—mostly for the company. There’s something incurably and intrinsically lonely about travelling alone, and Yuuri doesn’t know if he’d be up to that right now.

“Excited?” Phichit asks, standing beside him in the queue to check in. “Terrified? Wetting your pants?”

“Yuck,” Yuuri says. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s an idiom,” Phichit says.

Yuuri sighs. “I know. Honestly, I’m—I suppose I’m terrified. I don’t know.”

“Even if you were terrified, which I’m starting to think you might not be,” Phichit says, “you have nothing to be afraid of. You’re at the top of your game, young and handsome—”

“Stop, stop!” Yuuri knocks his shoulder against Phichit’s. “You don’t know that. I could be walking to my doom.”

“I do know,” Phichit says. “That was me, last year.”

Yuuri fusses with his boarding pass for something else to look at. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said.”

“That’s fine, it’s not like I don’t want to talk about my gold medal or anything,” Phichit says. He puts a hand around Yuuri’s wrist, yanking away his boarding pass and forcing Yuuri to look at him. “And I’m not going to be disappointed if you don’t get gold, okay? I’m not even going to be disappointed if you come last. You’re my best friend.”

“And you’re mine,” Yuuri says. “Of course. I want to do my best, though.”

“You will,” Phichit says.

He sounds so sure. Yuuri always marvels at how confidence comes so easily to some people. No matter how much he reminds himself that he’s _not_ a fraud, that he’s worked hard to get where he is, that he’s going to do well at the Grand Prix Final, he still can’t say it out loud.

“And say hi to Chris for me,” Phichit adds. “Apologise to him for putting him in a position where he had to listen to Viktor crying over the phone. Take a selfie with him! Oh, we should take one now—”

They’re in the middle of a crowd, winding around in the roped off check-in line, but Phichit doesn’t seem to care. He hands Yuuri back his boarding pass and gets out his phone, and then proceeds to spend the next three minutes adjusting his angle as their spot in the queue inches forwards. Only when they’re finally paused for long enough does he relent and take the photo.

“What was it Viktor said to you in Sochi, two years ago?” Phichit asks.

“He asked if I wanted a commemorative photo,” Yuuri says. The memory is sour, especially in light of what had happened at the banquet not long after.

“Then let’s call this a commemorative photo,” Phichit says. “What do you need one with Viktor for, anyway?”

Yuuri laughs. “He posts enough selfies.”

“Not enough,” Phichit says. “But for real. If you don’t get a selfie with him, like, kissing your medal in Barcelona, I’m disowning you.”

“Noted,” Yuuri says.

When Phichit shows him the photo, there’s a foreign expression on his face—a smile, relaxed. There’s never been a better time than this to make things right. It’s the right time to make a name for himself the way he should’ve from the beginning: by skating, just _skating_.

And Yuuri is more ready than he’s ever been.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~as promised (embarrassingly long ago), i have done a hack-job drawing of yuuri's costumes for this season. you can find it[here](https://renaissancefic.tumblr.com/post/159074094723/guhhh-im-so-unutterably-embarrassed-to-be-posting)~~
> 
> oops well i don't use tumblr anymore so until i find a new place to upload the pictures, please use your imagination :P

It’s freezing in Barcelona and Yuuri isn’t dressed warmly enough for the short walk out of the taxi and into the hotel. He falls into the lobby with a flurry of wind and topples over his suitcase—it takes a moment for him to come back down to earth, and when he looks up, he sees Yuri Plisetsky standing over him.

“Aren’t figure skaters supposed to be graceful?” Plisetsky sneers.

Yuuri balks, nearly bolts, but somehow he manages to hold his ground. He’s dealt with so much drama lately that a stuck-up sixteen-year-old doesn’t seem like much of an obstacle.

“Nice to see you too,” Yuuri says, getting to his feet. “I thought you wanted me to make it to the Final.”

Plisetsky colours. “I did. I thought you were getting better, though.”

“Tripping over my suitcase isn’t exactly grounds for disqualification,” Yuuri says. He probably comes off a little more grumpy than he really is.

“Whatever,” Plisetsky says. “You did—good. Um, nice job at NHK.”

Yuuri decides to smile and be grateful, because it seems like those few words cost Plisetsky a great deal of effort. In fact, Plisetsky might even be trying to smile back, but it looks so much like a snarl that Yuuri couldn’t say for certain.

“I’m looking forward to facing you again,” Yuuri says.

“Did Viktor—” Plisetsky starts. He stops, pensive. “Did he choreograph your routines?”

“Why would you think that?” Yuuri asks. “Because I skate like him? Because we’re—dating?”

“No,” Plisetsky says. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I started work on my choreography for the season before Viktor and I started going out,” Yuuri says. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but he didn’t do anything.”

“I’m not _disappointed_ ,” Plisetsky snaps. “Before he retired—before he met you at that fucking banquet—Viktor promised he would choreograph my senior debut. He never made good. If anything, I’m _happy_ he hasn’t choreographed for you.”

Yuuri isn’t sure what to say to that. He frowns. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be,” Plisetsky says. “You’ll be sorry when I crush you in the Final.”

The change of tone is both abrupt and comforting. Yuuri feels himself relax—this is familiar territory.

“Good luck with that.”

“You too,” Plisetsky says.

He turns on his heel and stalks off, leaving Yuuri in the wake of his own personal hurricane, never mind the gale outside.

 

* * *

 

Celestino nods as Yuuri steps off the rink. Just a nod, but a nod of approval. Yuuri knows it’s approval because Celestino isn’t forcing a smile. He’s all seriousness.

Yuuri thinks about it, sometimes—what it must be like to have a student in the Grand Prix Final two years in a row, but a different student each time. Yuuri has a lot to live up to, stepping into Phichit’s shadow. Celestino has even more on the line as their coach. Now, Yuuri thinks about that too—how Celestino’s coaching style has always worked perfectly for Phichit. Phichit has the right amount of independence, self-knowledge, to always do what’s best, and Celestino recognises that and works with him, not for him. Yuuri? Yuuri doesn’t think he’s possessed an ounce of self-knowledge in his life before the last two weeks.

And now, he wishes Celestino had something to _say_ to him, even a joke to crack.

Celestino does say something, eventually—he puts a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder and says, “This is your moment. You have worked so, so hard, and I know you’ll do the best you can tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Yuuri says.

Phichit deserves a coach who can be there for him all the time. Yuuri—Yuuri knows what he needs. He needs to do what he _wants_ to do. He thinks about comebacks and debuts and retirement and starting all over again, about putting your life on hold for someone else and having that returned, wholeheartedly. He thinks about going home.

He adds, “For everything.”

And then he hugs Celestino, and Celestino hugs him back, because they’ve come this far together and they can both sense an ending when they see one.

 

* * *

 

 

When he gets back to the hotel after official practice, the first person Yuuri bumps into is Christophe, and he is _not_ happy. Or maybe he is happy—it’s hard to tell, with how he keeps complimenting Yuuri on his routine, and then in the next breath berating him for breaking up with Viktor.

“You know, he was calling me every other night to cry about you,” Christophe says. “I would be much more forgiving if I wasn’t the one picking up the pieces.”

Yuuri suspects that Christophe wouldn’t have been forgiving either way, but he doesn’t say that. All he says is, “We cleared up the misunderstanding.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” Christophe says. “I wasn’t privy to the _misunderstanding_ in the first place.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Yuuri says.

Christophe doesn’t look convinced; he drops it anyway. “A few of us are going out for dinner tonight. Coming?”

Yuuri’s mouth opens around the word _no_ , but he catches himself—he had been so antisocial at the NHK Trophy, ignoring all the other skaters to sit in his room and mope, sometimes alone, sometimes making video calls overseas on the choppy hotel wifi. And what would it hurt to be a little social now? He’s practised for tomorrow. He’s in better shape than ever.

“N—yes. Yeah, okay.”

It’s messy, but Christophe gets the message. “Great. Whatever you do, don’t invite Atlin.”

“Otabek Atlin?” Yuuri asks. “I don’t even know him.”

“Good,” Christophe says. “If he gets wind of it, he’ll invite Yuri Plisetsky, and then we’ll all have a bad time.”

Yuuri thinks Christophe is being a bit too harsh on Plisetsky for all of a second, before he remembers exactly how well his last few meetings with Plisetsky went.

“I won’t say a word,” Yuuri promises.

By the time the evening rolls around, Yuuri has skillfully sidestepped Plisetsky and Otabek by locking himself in his hotel room for the rest of the afternoon, and he waits until absolutely the last moment to go down to the lobby to meet Christophe.

As it turns out, Christophe had been a bit overzealous with who he didn’t want to invite. The result is a romantic dinner for two plus one with Christophe and his husband Thierry—and, as Chris happily informs Yuuri, Thierry’s English is abysmal. The conversation is stilted at best, excruciating at worst, and the restaurant is far outside Yuuri’s price range. While Thierry says something in French and Christophe translates, Yuuri’s mind is occupied thinking about the fact that Christophe is almost certainly going to pay for the meal and how the hell is Yuuri going to pay him back?

It’s getting late and Yuuri is just about ready to call it a night when Christophe puts a hand on his arm and says, “Yuuri, look.”

Yuuri does look. He looks out the window of the restaurant and sees a familiar figure cut in silhouette by a streetlight—Viktor, head angled downwards, looking at something on his phone

“Oh, god,” Yuuri says, “how does he know where we are?”

This is way too soon. Sure, they’ve spoken over video call, and technically they’re a couple, but the last time Yuuri had seen Viktor in person he was _leaving_ , and that’s all Yuuri can think of now, the way Viktor didn’t meet his eye for two days and the way he looked at Yuuri when he walked out the door, only sadness, a sadness Yuuri couldn’t even understand at the time. He grips his cutlery tighter.

“Sorry, je l’ai publié sur Insta,” Thierry says, showing Yuuri a photo of their meals with the restaurant name tagged. “Je n’ai pas su—”

“It’s fine,” Christophe says. “Yuuri. Why don’t you go say hi? Don’t worry about the bill. I’ll get it.”

“I can pay you back tomorrow,” Yuuri says.

Christophe gives him a knowing smile. “Sure. Tomorrow.”

It’s so transparent he’s not going to let Yuuri pay him back, ever. That’s just how Christophe is. Yuuri bites his lip. He gives Christophe and Thierry one last look and one last apology before dashing out of the restaurant and into the rest of his life.

“ _Viktor_!”

Time slows down, if not for everyone else in Barcelona then at least for Yuuri, and for Viktor too, because it doesn’t matter that the world is turning and taking them with it, that people are walking up and down the street and bracing themselves against the cold. Yuuri’s heart is so, so warm.

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, and Yuuri could swear there are tears at the corners of  his eyes. “Yuuri, I didn’t think—”

“I was getting dinner with Christophe and Thierry,” Yuuri says. “Christophe saw you outside, and—”

“I was going to surprise you,” Viktor says.

“You did,” Yuuri says. “You did.”

They’re still standing a metre apart, a distance Viktor closes easily. He throws his arms around Yuuri and that’s it, really, that’s all Yuuri needs. His hands settle at the small of Viktor’s back, trying not to grip with any pressure, because if he does, he’ll never let go.

“I really, really want to kiss you,” Viktor mumbles into Yuuri’s shoulder.

“The hotel isn’t far,” Yuuri says.

Viktor hums. “I know. I’m staying at the same place as all the skaters. I ran into Yuri—the other Yuri—in the lift.” He pulls back so they’re looking each other in the eye. “You should move into my room, Yuuri! I booked a king room because I had a suspicion this might happen.”

“That’s a dangerous thought,” Yuuri says. “It’s the night before competition. I need to sleep, actually, or have you forgotten what it’s like to be a competitive skater?”

He regrets it as soon as he’s said it, but Viktor only laughs. “You’re right. At least come by for an hour.”

“I think I can afford an hour,” Yuuri says.

 

* * *

 

Viktor’s king bed is too small to contain everything running through Yuuri’s mind, the double-time heartbeats and all the reminders, over and again, that this is _real_. He ends up staying longer than hour and breaking the one cardinal rule of athletics: no physical exertion the night before a competition. He tries to think of it as a warm-up. A really early, naked warm-up.

They don’t talk about it. Viktor, by his own admission, is terrible at talking about these things, and Yuuri, just the once, wants a night off from his worries. It’s not a problem this time, though, because they don’t _need_ to talk about it. At last, they’re on the same page.

“So what have I missed?” Viktor asks.

It’s the first small talk they’ve made all evening, taking up less than one person worth of space in the king bed.

Yuuri shuts his eyes. “In the month since we last saw each other? Lots of skating, mostly.”

“Has it only been a month?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “It feels like longer.”

“It feels like longer than the two years since we met,” Viktor says. “Yuuri, I can’t bear to be apart from you ever again.”

Viktor wraps his arms tighter around Yuuri, and Yuuri opens his eyes again, but stays very still.

“Don’t you think it’s weird,” he says, “that we were only together for maybe two months, and for all of that time it wasn’t really… ? The two years—you know I forgot. I didn’t even notice. But the two months…”

“We don’t have to worry about any of that now,” Viktor says.

“But we can’t just pretend that it didn’t happen,” Yuuri protests. They haven’t talked about it, not since that video call, and he doesn’t want to—but maybe he _needs_ to talk about it. “It changes all sorts of things.”

Viktor shrugs, his shoulders shifting against Yuuri’s. “I know you’re right, but all I want to do is make up for lost time.”

“We have so much time,” Yuuri says. He doesn’t mention the other thing he’s been thinking about.

“You’re right—”

Viktor launches back to life all at once, propping himself up so he’s looking down at Yuuri, palms flat on the bed either side of his head. He grins.

“—so we’d better spend _all_ of it kissing.”

Yuuri is still a bit dazed, needs Viktor there to ground him. He had considered taking it slowly, easing back into life with Viktor after how inseparable they’d been when they were pretending to date. He had thought about working back to that level of closeness, gradually.

Now it makes sense: there is no other way to do this, not with someone like Viktor. Viktor has always been all or nothing—in his skating, in his public life, in the way he has so much love to give—and Yuuri is done with being cautious. Tomorrow, he’ll skate in the Grand Prix Final for the second time. He’s already doing better than most other competitive skaters, in that regard. And with his idol, his boyfriend, cheering for him from the sidelines, he feels like he could win gold and do it again, and again.

“Good idea,” he says, and takes Viktor’s head in his hands, kissing him soundly. Viktor kisses him back and it feels better than it ever did, each time improving on the last.

 

* * *

 

Then, by contrast, Yuuri’s short programme is not the best skate of his life, does not improve on the last in any constructive way. His score is one point lower, so it’s by no means a bad score. It’s not a good score, either.

“Well done, Seung-gil,” he says.

They’re passing in the corridor; Yuuri has just finished giving an interview and Seung-gil is leaving the kiss and cry. Seung-gil’s score puts him easily in first, the same as his starting position, and now there’s no doubt both Plisetsky and Otabek will out-score him. Yuuri had managed to score higher than Christophe and Emil—the big surprise is that Christophe is sitting in sixth place, but then he’s always been a slow starter—but if he ends up fourth, well—

All that talk of a medal. How will he get there with a short programme sitting one point lower than it had been when he won gold? How will he make the most of this second chance if he stays at the same level he always has?

“Thank you,” Seung-gil says. He opens his mouth to say something else, then closes it again. “You—”

Yuuri grins—he doesn’t have the face for a smirk, so he has to count on his words to back him up. “I’ll pass you tomorrow.”

Because he might be making life hard for himself, but Yuuri thinks it’s not fair that Seung-gil never gets fired up and _still_ manages to score higher than him. Let it be a fair fight tomorrow. Let Yuuri face competitors who think of him as a threat, not just a strong contender for fourth place.

It works. Seung-gil definitely has the face for a smirk, although it’s a different type of threat to the one Yuuri is trying to pose. There’s something like a promise in the look he gives Yuuri.

“I look forward to it,” Seung-gil says.

“A few of us are going out after the free skate,” Yuuri says. It’s not true, but in the moment, something seizes him. He thinks of what Viktor said about making up for lost time. “You should come.”

Seung-gil is quiet for a moment. Eventually, he says, “I’ll think about it.”

This time, Yuuri aims for a more welcoming smile. “See you then.”

Seung-gil heads off to be interviewed, and Yuuri makes for the rink. He finds Viktor sitting with Christophe as Otabek’s short programme is finishing.

“He’s good, isn’t he?” Viktor says. “Almost makes me wish I was out there competing against him.”

Yuuri knows Viktor well enough now to tell the difference between flippant comments and genuine sentiment, and this is more of the former than the latter. Still, it makes him think. Viktor has never really belonged anywhere except the ice—it’s strange sitting like this, rinkside, with Viktor dressed like any other audience member, except maybe more fashionable.

“Shut your mouth, old man,” Christophe says, elbowing Viktor. “You’re making me nostalgic already.”

“Really, Chris, I wasn’t aware you were retired,” Viktor says slyly.

Christophe goes quiet. “I wonder. I’ve been thinking about it, you know. Go out on a high. I missed Swiss Nationals for this. All that’s left of the season is Euros, and Worlds, and then…”

Yuuri remembers hearing something similar from Phichit. “You’re really retiring, then?”

“Well, it has to happen eventually,” Christophe says. “I’m a married man now. I don’t want to spend all my time training anymore—I want to spend it with my husband and our cats.”

“Oh, are there more cats now?” Viktor asks.

“There will be,” Christophe says. He sighs. “Once I’m gone, it’ll really be a change of the guard. All these top skaters… they’re so young. I could do a triple axel before Yuri Plisetsky was even born.”

Viktor throws an arm around Yuuri’s shoulder and pulls him close. “Not quite! There’ll still be Yuuri!”

“Don’t say that,” Yuuri says, “I won’t be the oldest.”

“You’ll be the oldest in the top ten, maybe even the top twenty,” Viktor says. He leans in even closer and whispers in Yuuri’s ear, “Twenty-five is practically _ancient_.”

“Thanks,” Yuuri says, his shoulders slumping forwards. There’s not much else he can say to something like that.

“That’s true, though,” Christophe says. “The last of the old guard. You were always one of our generation, Yuuri.”

 _Their generation_ —Viktor is nodding vigorously, and who would’ve predicted that the very skaters Yuuri spent his youth looking up to would ever consider him one of them? They’re right, too; he’s making his second debut, so it feels new, but most of these young skaters only made their first debuts a year or two ago. He _is_ one of the old guard.

That at was all he’d ever wanted, to skate on an even playing field with Viktor. Maybe he’d been there all along.

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Carry on our legacy,” Christophe says. “Show the world what us older skaters are made of.”

“I might not even medal tomorrow,” Yuuri says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Viktor says. _Viktor_ says it doesn’t matter if Yuuri medals or not. “Show the world the skating you love the most.”

He places a hand over Yuuri’s and squeezes. In that moment, it could just be the two of them in an empty stadium, Yuuri wouldn’t know the difference.

“Surprise them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a text conversation that happened not long after:
>
>> phichit: your sp today was so good, yuuri!! well done!!!!  
> yuuri: it was one point less than at nhk :(  
> phichit: that's not what matters... you skated kind of? differently?  
> phichit: like... more sexy than usual ;)  
> yuuri: um  
> phichit: omg, did you get laid last night?  
> [at this point, phichit's screen shows the " . . . " that means yuuri is typing, but the dots keep dropping in and out, and phichit waits a full minute but no message arrives]  
> phichit: YOU GOT LAID DIDN'T YOU!!!!!!  
> yuuri: no comment
> 
> one more chapter to go! 


	20. Chapter 20

The music ends, and Yuuri doesn’t fall to his knees—he stays standing tall, the light off his costume catching his eyes and the glare of the ice filling the rest of his vision. This is his final pose, one arm out as if waving, and his head bowed reverently.

But this is no longer the time for reticence. After a pause, he lifts his chin high and tries to focus on something in the crowd. Some _one_ , maybe. It’s an exercise in futility without his glasses. He stays still, holds his pose until the applause dies down, and then makes his way off the ice to where Celestino is waiting.

“How does it feel?” Celestino asks.

Yuuri opens his mouth, but he doesn’t know what to say to that, so he closes it again.

“I’ll give you a hint,” Celestino says. “It was a damn good performance, Yuuri.”

“I’m going to get bronze,” Yuuri says plainly.

He tries to shake the thought, but he’s seen Plisetsky and Otabek’s free skates, seen the medals it won them in the qualifying events. At the same time, though—he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind if he doesn’t get gold or even silver, and he doesn’t think he would’ve minded if he came in sixth place. There’s something special about just _being_ here. A clean start, no expectations to live up to.

“Then it’s the best bronze you’ll ever have won,” Celestino says.

Yuuri manages a laugh. “I’d better win silver next time, then. Or gold.”

“Next time?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “Next time.”

They’ve talked about it, in some terms, but it still feels unreal. They reached the same conclusion independently, which is more than Yuuri could’ve asked for, and come to an agreement. That doesn’t make it any easier to vocalise. That this is it for their working relationship.

Yuuri nearly works up the courage to say something else, but he’s interrupted by Viktor—throwing himself onto Yuuri, overbalancing the both of them, and kissing him hard. Yuuri couldn’t even say where Viktor came from, just that he arrives with his usual amount of flair and exuberance. For a moment, Yuuri is back in Japan after the regional championships—Viktor had kissed him then, too. He grips onto Viktor’s back and holds him close, to make up for the fact that he hadn’t known what it meant that time, not the way Viktor had almost certainly meant it.

“You’re so amazing,” Viktor says, his lips moving against Yuuri’s. “So, so—”

“The kiss and cry is not for _actual kissing_ ,” Celestino interrupts. “Viktor, you can talk to him later. Yuuri. Come on.”

“Coming,” Yuuri says, keeping his eyes on Viktor.

“Sorry for distracting him,” Viktor says, keeping his eyes on Yuuri.

They part, because they must, but Yuuri’s heart stays in that moment, his face burning with embarrassment but the rest of him alive with a kind of satisfaction he’s still getting used to.

His score isn’t spectacular, as they’d all known. It doesn’t matter.

From behind the cameras, Viktor is grinning at him, giving two thumbs up. Yuuri smiles nervously back, and Viktor looks so enamoured—there really is no other word for it—that he might fall over.

Either way, Yuuri’s won.

 

* * *

 

As he steps off the podium, Yuuri extends a hand to the other Yuri. “Well done.”

“Are you trying to help me down?” Plisetsky growls. “I’m not the one who trips over his fucking suitcase.”

 _That was_ one _time_ , Yuuri does not say. Instead, he keeps his hand resolutely where it is. “I want to shake your hand. People do it to congratulate each other, sometimes. And I’d say the first gold of your senior career is worth congratulations.”

In response, Plisetsky takes Yuuri’s hand and uses it to support himself as he climbs down from the centre of the podium, proving for once and for all that he really is all talk.

“Aren’t you mad that I beat you?”

Yuuri doesn’t even have to think about his answer. “No. I’m not ready for retirement just yet. You remember what you said to me, two years ago?”

Plisetsky colours, and behind him Otabek makes a pained gesture, a signal for _don’t mention it_.

“You said there was only room for one Yuri in the senior division,” Yuuri continues. “I suppose that makes us rivals.”

“You’re not good enough to be my rival,” Plisetsky says.

“And you don’t have enough experience to be mine,” Yuuri says. He wishes he could speak this confidently all the time. Picking on a sixteen year old feels a bit like punching below his weight. “But here we are.”

Then, the surprise of the day: Plisetsky says, “I only said it to motivate you,” and spins in the other direction and skates away, leaving Yuuri gobsmacked. He might need some time to process that one.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri can’t stop looking at his medal. He wants to wear it over his suit to the banquet. He wants to wear it in the shower and to bed. It’s only bronze, but it’s never felt like this before. Bronze is the most beautiful colour he’s ever seen.

He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting for Viktor to finish up in the bathroom. Legs crossed, knees close to his chest, he dangles the medal by its ribbon so that he doesn’t tarnish the metal and holds it up to the light. It blocks his view, and he doesn’t have his glasses on, so when Viktor comes out of the bathroom Yuuri misses him until he’s right there.

“Hey, champion,” Viktor says. “How’s it feel?”

“You know how it feels,” Yuuri says, letting the medal fall back to his chest.

“Hmm, I don’t think I ever got a bronze, let me see…”

“ _Viktor_.”

He laughs, knocking his shoulder against Yuuri’s. “Don’t mind me. I’m just being nostalgic.”

“You’re teasing me,” Yuuri says. Before Viktor can protest, he adds, “I don’t mind. I’m so…”

“So… ?” Viktor prompts him. “Tired? Sexy?”

“Happy,” Yuuri settles on, although it still doesn’t feel like the right word. He frowns.

“You don’t look happy,” Viktor says.

Yuuri starts at that, turning to face Viktor, one leg bent at the knee and resting on the bed. “What do I look? I mean—I’m not sad, obviously.”

“I know _that_ ,” Viktor says. He puts a finger to his chin. “You look like you’re searching for something. An answer, maybe. To a question you haven’t asked me.”

 _Be mine_ , Yuuri thinks. _Be my everything_. He says, “Be my date to the banquet?”

Viktor gives Yuuri a curious look. Maybe they both know that isn’t the question, but Yuuri isn’t ready to ask it yet and he doesn’t think Viktor is ready to answer it, either. In Yuuri’s mind, though, this is a do-over of the first time, the one he doesn’t remember. The only difference this time will be that he doesn’t get so drunk that he forgets all of it.

And maybe the pole dancing—that’ll have to go too.

“Um,” Yuuri says, filling the silence, “only if you—”

“I thought that was a given,” Viktor says, finally relaxing into a smile. “Yuuri, you’re my boyfriend. From now on, whenever we go anywhere together, we’re on a date.”

“What if we’re just going shopping?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor shakes his head. “Still a date. I might even buy you a new tie.”

“What if we’re on a bus?”

“Date,” Viktor says.

Yuuri purses his lips, thinking. “Okay, what if we find a restroom at the same time?”

Without missing a beat, Viktor says, “ _Definitely_ a date. That’s how we met in New York.”

“You were drunk,” Yuuri says. It had been so fraught for so long, like the rest of their relationship, but now he catches himself smiling like a fool, tickled fond by the memory.

“And you were drunk the _real_ first time we met,” Viktor says, “so neither of us can talk.”

“I know,” Yuuri says. “I—we really have a lot of lost time to make up for, don’t we?”

In response, Viktor kisses him, sweet and gentle and nothing like how they kissed when Yuuri was under the impression that their relationship was still all for show. Then, it had been hasty, like they had to steal kisses, like it was somehow the wrong thing to do. It was—or, it was a bad idea to do it without talking about it first. This, in contrast, feels like the best idea they’ve ever had.

“You know, I had such a crush on you,” Yuuri says. “You don’t even know the half of it. It really broke my heart to find out you were so human.”

Viktor draws closer to Yuuri. “What else do you want to know about me?” he asks.

“Ah, I’m putting it off,” Yuuri says. He runs a finger down Viktor’s arm—he looks so good in a suit. “Let’s go. The banquet is waiting for us.”

Yuuri stands up, looking down over Viktor, and presses a kiss to the top of his head. Self-conscious, Viktor touches the spot where Yuuri’s lips had been. It’s another moment before he stands too. Yuuri loses the advantage of height, that feeling of having some kind of power over Viktor, so he distracts himself by straightening Viktor’s tie.

“I’m not a skater anymore,” Viktor says. He’s looking up at the ceiling; Yuuri can’t gauge how he feels about that. “I’m going to a post-competition banquet as a guest, not a competitor. An outsider.”

“You’re hardly an outsider,” Yuuri says, patting Viktor’s tie into place. “But don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll introduce you to anyone who doesn’t—” He pauses, laughing. It’s the most absurd thing he’s ever said. “—anyone who doesn’t know you. As my trophy boyfriend.”

Viktor looks back down and the smile on his face is brighter than an ice rink under floodlights. “There’s nobody I’d rather be.”

Strange, Yuuri thinks, how he doesn’t need to be standing taller than Viktor to feel that surge of power.

 

* * *

 

The banquet is—it’s a banquet. There are stuffy old ISU officials looking to make small talk for the sake of making small talk, and there are friends and family and fans and nowhere near enough dancing. Inevitably, Plisetsky is the centre of attention, whether he likes it or not. Apparently they had to hire extra bouncers this year just to keep his fans out, although Yuuri isn’t sure whether that’s true, or it’s Christophe exaggerating.

It feels strange at first. Yuuri has no way to draw confidence in a crowd without Phichit. He might have been premature in assuming that Viktor would be a reasonable substitute. No, Viktor draws something else in a crowd—he draws attention, and lots of it, which quickly drives Yuuri away from him and towards Emil, who’s with Sara and Michele Crispino, making a nuisance of themselves although Michele didn’t even make it to the GPF. Their exuberance is quite enough, setting Yuuri adrift again until he finds his way to Seung-gil’s company. When he’s hand enough of glares as a substitute for conversation he spends a few minutes with Plisetsky and Otabek, who seems to have become his handler, and when he’s _really_ had enough of glares as a substitute for conversation, Yuuri finds his way back to Christophe, and, at last, Viktor.

“You promised you would introduce me to people,” Viktor says, pouting.

Yuuri obliges. “Christophe, this is Viktor Nikiforov. My boyfriend.”

“Good confidence,” Christope says, “but your delivery needs more flair.”

“My _trophy_ boyfriend,” Yuuri adds.

“That’s the important part,” Viktor says. “You must pay close attention: Yuuri is a world-famous figure skater, and I’m just the hopeless man who follows him around.”

“Don’t say stuff like that,” Yuuri says, embarrassed. “You’re the one who—you know. Has all those trophies and medals.”

“And you’re Yuuri Katsuki,” Viktor says.

Christophe sighs. “This is much more romantic than the last time you two were at a banquet together. But a lot less fun.”

“Are you suggesting we start drinking?” Viktor asks, raising an eyebrow. He has no way of knowing that Yuuri’s already several steps ahead of him.

“I’m suggesting a lot of things,” Christophe says. “You two wait here; I’ll see if I can get my hands on a bottle of something.”

He disappears, leaving Yuuri and Viktor stranded alone, together, amidst a sea of polite conversation and glasses clinking together. This is the moment: they’re in the middle of the crowd at the banquet and Yuuri has three glasses of champagne coursing through his system. It’s not that Yuuri has finally worked up the nerve to say it—although there is an element of bravery required, he thinks—but that it’s now or it’s never, and he wants this more than anything, so it has to be _now_.

“Viktor, can I talk to you about something?”

Yuuri knows he has Viktor’s full attention, but he wants to be absolutely certain. He wraps his fingers around Viktor’s tie, pulling it loose from his suit, and gives it a gentle tug.

“Of course,” Viktor says, his hand coming up to meet Yuuri’s.

They’re in their own bubble, isolated from the buzz of chatter around them. Music is playing and Christophe is leading the charge to start dancing, Emil and Plisetsky close behind him. There’s no better moment than now. Yuuri clears his throat. Stands a little closer, sucks in a breath.

“Two years ago, at the Grand Prix Final banquet, I asked you a question.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri wakes with the hazy morning light as it comes through a gap between the curtains, a pinkish-purple that means it snowed overnight. He sits up in bed and rubs his eyes, adjusting. It’s too early. And in fact, when he pulls the curtains apart, just a little bit, he sees that it’s still snowing—light enough that locals won’t have any trouble getting around, but heavy enough that the tourists will be complaining.

At least there are only a few tourists this time of year. It’s early March, only a few more weeks until Worlds. After Christophe’s gold at Euros and Yuuri’s at Four Continents, the journalists are speculating that it’ll be a bloodbath between the two of them, which it probably _would_ be if they weren’t such good friends.

Yuuri has been training non-stop, although not as hard as he did back in Detroit. There’s something about Hastesu that lets him take everything slower, displaces him from the passage of time, soothes his anxieties. He misses Phichit, of course, but they Skype basically every day so it’s not that hard. He misses their apartment, sometimes, or maybe he misses the fun he had, rose-tinted with nostalgia. It’s unorthodox for a skater to make a change like this mid-season, but it’s worth it for the peace Hasetsu brings him—showing up to the rink every morning with Makkachin at his heels, greeted by Yuuko, or Takeshi, or the girls on their way to school, or all of them at once, his second family. And living with his own family is like breathing fresh air again, like closing his eyes and feeling the sea breeze against his skin.

Outside, the snow starts falling harder. Yuuri shuts his eyes for a moment, still heavy with sleep, and when he opens them again he looks back down beside him.

He shakes Viktor’s shoulder. “Hey. Wake up.”

“I’m awake,” Viktor says, his eyes still closed, half a smile on his face.

“Okay, start acting like it,” Yuuri says. “It’s snowing.”

That does the trick. Viktor perks up, scooting across the bed and resting his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder so he can look out the window.

“Beautiful.”

“We still have to go to the rink,” Yuuri warns.

Viktor acts shocked, a charade which Yuuri knows he can keep up for as long as he likes. “I didn’t say anything! Did you hear me say anything?”

“You always want to take snow days,” Yuuri says, pinching Viktor’s arm for the way it makes him squirm. “Have you looked at the calendar lately? Fifteen days until we leave for Worlds. I’m _still_ not back in shape from all that katsudon I ate after Four Continents.”

“Let’s at least take the morning off,” Viktor whines.

He flops back down onto the bed, and Yuuri twists away from the window, leaning over Viktor with one palm flat on the bed at his other side. “If you insist, co—”

Viktor covers his face with his hands. “Don’t call me that!”

“Okay, coach,” Yuuri says, grinning. “Whatever you say, coach.”

“We need to go out soon, I suppose,” Viktor says, peering out through his fingers. “To walk Makkachin. See if your parents need anything from the shops.”

“No, you’re right,” Yuuri says. “We should stay in. Just a while longer.”

“Just a while,” Viktor says.

Yuuri shifts one of his legs between Viktor’s, balancing himself properly so he can lean down, part Viktor’s hands, and kiss him. He doesn’t think he could ever get tired of this—waking up side-by-side, setting their own pace. And whatever happens next season, or the season after that, he knows that Viktor will be there. As his coach, his boyfriend, his—something else, maybe. Eventually.

The snow keeps falling outside, maybe the last of the season. In his childhood bedroom in his parent’s onsen, the room where he’d spent many a night dreaming of his idol and wishing he could meet him as an equal, Yuuri settles into the realisation that although he’s living his dreams, he doesn’t need to think of them as dreams anymore.

“You’re lucky I like you,” Yuuri says.

Viktor smiles up at him, and it takes all of Yuuri’s focus to stay upright. “I am lucky,” he says. “And I do like you. Very much so.”

“You know I’m bad at picking up on these things,” Yuuri says innocently. “You might have to tell me again until I get the hint.”

If there’s one thing experience has taught Yuuri, it’s that he _is_ bad at reading the way other people read him, but only when it’s something positive—because, in his own eyes, he thought he was never been good enough to deserve their good opinion. Sometimes he still catches himself thinking that way, but he’s getting better, so much better, every day. One day, he’ll be able to say it himself, and not falter: that he is Yuuri Katsuki, Japan’s top male skater, and he deserves every bit of happiness that comes his way.

“I like you,” Viktor says. “I _love_ you. Yuuri—”

“What was that? Say it again.”

So Viktor does—he says it again, and again, and Yuuri says it back with no hesitation.

 _This_ is the real thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, we've reached the end. i've had a blast writing this fic and i really hope i have been able to impart some of that enjoyment onto you. this isn't my last chaptered fic for this fandom. (i'll begin posting another one soon which, unlike this self-edited romp through emotional inadequacy, is already completed and fully beta'd.) (then i'll be writing more, no doubt.)
> 
> thank you to everyone who has read, kudos'd, commented, bookmarked, rec'd, lurked, whatever—you have made this experience so, so worthwhile. see you next level! :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Impostor Syndrome by renaissance [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10954668) by [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)




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